Microsoft is reportedly developing a new AI model called MAI-1 to compete with existing offerings from Google and Anthropic. The specific use case for the model has not been determined yet, but it’s said to be distinct from the models previously released by Inflection, for which Microsoft acquired the intellectual property for $65 million.
According to sources, MAI-1 is expected to be significantly larger than Microsoft’s previous open-source models, requiring more data and computing power, and therefore, a higher cost. It’s anticipated to have approximately 500 billion parameters, less than OpenAI’s GPT-4 which has over 1 trillion, but larger than smaller models from other companies.
Microsoft’s CTO Kevin Scott mentioned in a recent blog post their plans to continue building large supercomputers for OpenAI in the future. The collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI is seen as mutually beneficial and poised to have a long-lasting impact. The oversight of MAI-1 is entrusted to Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of Google DeepMind and former CEO of AI start-up Inflection, who joined Microsoft along with his team in March.