--- title: "Microsoft Reportedly Building a GPT-4 Competitor Despite $10 Billion OpenAI Partnership" description: "Microsoft is said to be building an OpenAI competitor despite its multi-billion-dollar partnership with the firm." date: "2024-05-07" modified: "2024-05-07" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-building-openai-competitor" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Future Society" - "OpenAI" tags: - "llms" - "microsoft" - "OpenAI" - "the digest" --- # Microsoft Reportedly Building a GPT-4 Competitor Despite $10 Billion OpenAI Partnership ![Microsoft is said to be building an OpenAI competitor despite its multi-billion-dollar partnership with the firm.]() *\Image: Joan Cros / NurPhoto via Getty / Futurism\* ## MAI, MAI, MAI Microsoft is said to be building an OpenAI competitor despite its [multi-billion-dollar partnership]() with the firm — and according to at least one insider, it's using GPT-4 data to do so. First [reported by *The Information*](), the new large language model (LLM) is apparently called MAI-1, and an inside source told the website that Microsoft is using GPT-4 and public information from the web to train it out. MAI-1 may also be trained on datasets from Inflection, the startup previously run by Google DeepMind cofounder [Mustafa Suleyman]() before he [joined Microsoft]() as the CEO of its AI department earlier this year. When it hired Suleyman, Microsoft also brought over most of Inflection's staff and folded them into Microsoft AI. In a [LinkedIn post responding]() to *The Information*'s reporting, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott suggested that news of MAI-1 wasn't that big of a deal. "I'm not sure why this is news, but just to summarize the obvious: we build big supercomputers to train AI models; our partner Open AI uses these supercomputers to train frontier-defining models; and then we both make these models available in products and services so that lots of people can benefit from them," Scott wrote. "We rather like this arrangement." ## Purpose Unknown All the same, some of the specifics of the forthcoming LLM, including that it's slated to be larger than those being [created by Meta]() and the [French AI startup Mistral](), suggest that there may be some internal competition brewing between OpenAI and its biggest investor. While it's going to be big, it's unclear what, exactly, MAI-1 is going to be used for. According to *The Information*'s sources, Microsoft is remaining somewhat agnostic about the LLMs purpose and is waiting to see how it performs to determine what it will do. As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman remains tight-lipped about when GPT-5, the successor to the LLM undergirding ChatGPT, [is going to drop](), the new report's sources suggest that Microsoft could preview MAI-1 as soon as its [Build conference](), which takes place later this month. It remains unclear if and when Microsoft informed OpenAI of its MAI-1 intentions, and *Futurism* has reached out to both companies to ask them about that timeline as well. **More on Microsoft:** [*Microsoft and OpenAI Reportedly Building $100 Billion Secret Supercomputer to Train Advanced AI*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()