Microsoft invests $1 billion in Elon Musk-founded OpenAI
The companies will work to build new Azure AI supercomputing technologies.
Today, Microsoft announced that it's investing $1 billion in the Elon Musk-founded company OpenAI. The two companies will work together to bring supercomputing technologies and AI to Microsoft Azure. And OpenAI will run its services exclusively in Microsoft's cloud. Ultimately, the partners hope to build artificial general intelligence (AGI), a technology that some say will match or exceed human intellect.
Most recently, OpenAI has made the news for developing AI that can beat human gamers. But it's also behind experiments like writing believable fake news and improving the dexterity of robotic hands. While Musk has since left the company -- he founded it partly because he was concerned about the dangers AI could pose -- the partnership could help advance some of his most outlandish ideas, like stitching sensors into human brains. In a press release, OpenAI said it hopes AGI will also address issues climate change, affordable and high-quality healthcare and personalized education.
