---
title: "Microsoft Deploys Powerful New AI Completely Disconnected From the Internet"
description: "Microsoft has trained a massive new generative AI model — which is entirely disconnected from the internet."
date: "2024-05-08"
modified: "2024-05-08"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-ai-disconnected-from-internet"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
tags:
  - "ai chatbots"
  - "microsoft"
  - "OpenAI"
  - "the digest"
---

# Microsoft Deploys Powerful New AI Completely Disconnected From the Internet

![Microsoft has trained a massive new generative AI model — which is entirely disconnected from the internet.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/microsoft-ai-disconnected-from-internet.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty / Futurism\</em\>*

## Spy AI

Microsoft has trained a massive new generative AI model — and strikingly, it's entirely disconnected from the internet.

The idea is to provide US intelligence agencies with a way to analyze top-secret information without running the risk of leaking any of it.

As [*Bloomberg* reports](<https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/microsoft-creates-top-secret-generative-ai-service-for-us-spies-1.2069792>), the company claims it's the first large language model (LLM) of its kind that's completely divorced from the internet, unlike other competing ones that greatly rely on up-to-date information scoured from various places online.

Microsoft's new "air-gapped" AI, which is based on OpenAI's GPT-4 LLM and will reportedly be available to 10,000 users, could allow agencies like the CIA to quickly analyze a wealth of classified data.

In other words, civilians will likely never get their hands on it — or at least, Microsoft will do its best that won't happen.

"This is the first time we’ve ever had an isolated version — when isolated means it’s not connected to the internet — and it’s on a special network that’s only accessible by the US government," Microsoft’s chief technology officer for strategic missions and technology William Chappell told *Bloomberg*.

## For CIA's Eyes Only

The conversation surrounding the [unintentional dispersal of sensitive data](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-warns-employees-ai>) via AI chatbots is as old as the tech itself. Executives of some of the largest companies out there have long warned their employees about making use of the tech, citing risks of leaking sensitive or proprietary information.

Of course, the need for maintaining confidentiality becomes even higher when it comes to classified intelligence data.

Before national agencies can make use of Microsoft's latest spy AI, the intelligence community will first need to test and accredit it.

According to *Bloomberg*, the CIA in particular is interested in leveraging generative AI tech.

"There is a race to get generative AI onto intelligence data," said assistant director of the CIA for the Transnational and Technology Mission Center Sheetal Patel during a conference last month. The country to make use of the tech first would win.

"And I want it to be us," she added.

**More on Microsoft:** *[Microsoft Reportedly Building a GPT-4 Competitor Despite $10 Billion OpenAI Partnership](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-building-openai-competitor>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)