Microsoft just made a huge investment in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Here’s why

Microsoft has been working with OpenAI since 2019, before OpenAI became a massive hit with its AI services such as ChatGPT and DALL-E, but now Microsoft has said it will be extending that partnership with a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment. 

The investment will continue to fund the AI research company's research and specifically develop AI that is “increasingly safe, useful and powerful,” according to OpenAI.

Microsoft said it will deploy OpenAI's models across its consumer and enterprise products and “introduce new categories of digital experiences built on OpenAI's technology”.

Also: What is ChatGPT and why does it matter? Here's everything you need to know 

Neither company has disclosed the value of the investment, but sources have revealed that the investment will total $10 billion over multiple years, according to Bloomberg. This investment follows the initial investment Microsoft made in 2019 worth $1 billion, and the $2 billion in the years after. 

Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service will be OpenAI's exclusive cloud provider, powering all OpenAI workloads across research, products and API services.

Also: How to use DALL•E 2 to turn your wildest imaginations into tangible art 

Just last week, Microsoft announced the availability of its Azure OpenAI Service, allowing businesses to take advantage of Open AI's models with added enterprise benefits. The press release on Monday highlighted that announcement and emphasized the company's intent to make its services more broadly available. 

“In this next phase of our partnership, developers and organizations across industries will have access to the best AI infrastructure, models, and toolchain with Azure to build and run their applications,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Also: I spent an hour with a new, ChatGPT-inspired AI chatbot, and I may die laughing

ChatGPT's immense success since launching in November likely provided additional impetus for Microsoft's investment. Within one week of launching, the chatbot garnered over one million users. When visiting the ChatGPT site now, you are often met with an “at capacity” message due to how many people are on it and the server not being able to process your request. 

Currently, the chatbot remains free, but in January, OpenAI announced on its Discord server that soon a paid, professional version might be available to the public. The research AI company even posted a waitlist that indicates that the new service would provide users with service that is always available (no blackout windows), fast responses from ChatGPT and unlimited messages.

However there have been a few bumps in the road already: Stack Overflow in December temporarily banned ChatGPT-generated answers after users submitted ChatGPT answers to coding problems that looked plausibly correct but were actually bogus. And due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning and the safety and accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT was also banned from New York City Public Schools' networks and devices.

The investment comes just after Microsoft announced a huge round of layoffs, with 10,000 employees losing their jobs, as the company attempted to align cost with revenue and customer demands, according to Nadella.