OpenAI and Microsoft are ending their exclusivity agreement

Well, it's official: Microsoft and OpenAI are no longer monogamous when it comes to AI, with both companies releasing statements confirming that their exclusivity agreement is over. Prior to the announcement, Microsoft and OpenAI's several-year-long partnership saw the former delivering the Azure cloud-based infrastructure and billions of dollars in funding for the company's breakout AI hit, ChatGPT.

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With the new agreement, "OpenAI can now serve all its products to customers across any cloud provider," however, Microsoft will remain OpenAI's primary cloud partner, with the AI firm's products to "ship first on Azure." This new open relationship makes sense in light of the recent news of Amazon investing $50 billion in OpenAI. A deal that includes silicon and gigawatts of compute.

In fact, when news broke that OpenAI was in talks with Amazon, some reports suggested that Microsoft considered suing OpenAI. A rumor that makes it sound like the partnership between the two companies has soured in recent months. That said, the revised agreement sees Microsoft retain its license for OpenAI's models and various products through 2032; however, this is now non-exclusive.

According to the statement, Microsoft is still a major shareholder in OpenAI, and "revenue share payments from OpenAI to Microsoft" will continue through 2030, "independent of OpenAI's technology progress." Interestingly, as part of the restructuring, Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI.

"While this amendment simplifies the partnership, the work we're doing together remains ambitious," the statement concludes. "From scaling gigawatts of new datacenter capacity, to collaborating on next- generation silicon, to applying AI to advance cybersecurity, and more, we're excited to keep partnering to advance and scale AI for people and organizations around the world."