Microsoft's OpenAI investment was triggered by Google fears, emails reveal - The Verge | Canada News Media
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Microsoft's OpenAI investment was triggered by Google fears, emails reveal – The Verge

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a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 because it was “very worried” that Google was years ahead in scaling up its AI efforts. An internal email, titled “Thoughts on OpenAI,” between Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, CEO Satya Nadella, and co-founder Bill Gates reveals some of the high-level discussions around an investment opportunity in the months before Microsoft revealed the partnership.

The email was released on Tuesday as part of the ongoing US Justice Department antitrust case against Google, Business Insider reports.

“We are multiple years behind the competition in terms of machine learning scale,” Scott writes in his June 12th, 2019, email to Nadella and Gates. He details how it took six months for Microsoft engineers to replicate Google’s BERT language model and get it trained “because our infrastructure wasn’t up to the task.”

Scott says he was initially dismissive of AI efforts at OpenAI and Google DeepMind when the companies were competing to see who “could achieve the most impressive game-playing stunt” — a clear reference to Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo Zero demos. Scott quickly became more impressed when things moved toward natural language processing models. “As I dug in to try to understand where all of the capability gaps were between Google and us for model training, I got very, very worried,” Scott wrote.

Some of Google’s early AI models helped it have a competitive advantage against Bing, said Scott, and he even praised Google’s autocomplete features in Gmail that were “getting scarily good” in 2019.

Nadella responded to Scott’s thoughts on OpenAI by forwarding it to Microsoft CFO Amy Hood, noting that this is “why I want to do this.” Hood is a key member of Microsoft’s senior leadership team and is tasked with overseeing the company’s financial goals and regularly keeping Microsoft’s spending in check.

The email thread, which you can read below, is heavily redacted and appears to be a reply to either Nadella or Gates. While Gates stepped down from the Microsoft board in 2020 amid an investigation into an affair with an employee, he’s reportedly still been a big part of Microsoft’s ongoing relationship with OpenAI. It’s not clear from this internal email who initiated the discussion about OpenAI in 2019, but Business Insider reported earlier this week that Gates had been regularly meeting with OpenAI since 2016 and helped broker the deal.

Microsoft has now invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI, adding its models to Office apps, its Bing search engine, Edge, and even inside its Windows operating system. It has helped Microsoft be seen as more of a leader in AI, instead of falling behind as it once feared five years ago. Nadella also recently made AI and security his top two areas of focus for Microsoft in 2024 and beyond, signaling that the rollout of AI features in Microsoft products isn’t about to slow down.

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Tesla shares soar more than 14% as Trump win is seen boosting Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company

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NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tesla soared Wednesday as investors bet that the electric vehicle maker and its CEO Elon Musk will benefit from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”

Tesla shares jumped 14.8% Wednesday while shares of rival electric vehicle makers tumbled. Nio, based in Shanghai, fell 5.3%. Shares of electric truck maker Rivian dropped 8.3% and Lucid Group fell 5.3%.

Tesla dominates sales of electric vehicles in the U.S, with 48.9% in market share through the middle of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Subsidies for clean energy are part of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It included tax credits for manufacturing, along with tax credits for consumers of electric vehicles.

Musk was one of Trump’s biggest donors, spending at least $119 million mobilizing Trump’s supporters to back the Republican nominee. He also pledged to give away $1 million a day to voters signing a petition for his political action committee.

In some ways, it has been a rocky year for Tesla, with sales and profit declining through the first half of the year. Profit did rise 17.3% in the third quarter.

The U.S. opened an investigation into the company’s “Full Self-Driving” system after reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

And investors sent company shares tumbling last month after Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night, seeing not much progress at Tesla on autonomous vehicles while other companies have been making notable progress.

Tesla began selling the software, which is called “Full Self-Driving,” nine years ago. But there are doubts about its reliability.

The stock is now showing a 16.1% gain for the year after rising the past two days.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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S&P/TSX composite up more than 100 points, U.S. stock markets mixed

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TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 100 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in base metal and utility stocks, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 103.40 points at 24,542.48.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 192.31 points at 42,932.73. The S&P 500 index was up 7.14 points at 5,822.40, while the Nasdaq composite was down 9.03 points at 18,306.56.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.44 cents US on Tuesday.

The November crude oil contract was down 71 cents at US$69.87 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down eight cents at US$2.42 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$7.20 at US$2,686.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.35 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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S&P/TSX up more than 200 points, U.S. markets also higher

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TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 200 points in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets were also headed higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 205.86 points at 24,508.12.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 336.62 points at 42,790.74. The S&P 500 index was up 34.19 points at 5,814.24, while the Nasdaq composite was up 60.27 points at 18.342.32.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.71 cents US on Thursday.

The November crude oil contract was down 15 cents at US$75.70 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down two cents at US$2.65 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down US$29.60 at US$2,668.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.47 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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