Microsoft’s recent billion-dollar investment in OpenAI has been revealed to have been triggered by fears of falling behind Google in the realm of machine learning. An email exchange between Microsoft executives, including CEO Satya Nadella and co-founder Bill Gates, shed light on the concerns within the company regarding its lagging position compared to Google’s advancements in machine learning capabilities.
In the email dated June 12th, 2019, Microsoft executive Scott expressed his worries about the company’s delay in scaling up its machine learning capabilities, particularly in comparison to Google. Scott highlighted how it took Microsoft engineers six months to replicate Google’s BERT language model due to the inadequacy of their infrastructure for such tasks.
Initially dismissive of AI efforts by OpenAI and Google DeepMind, Scott’s perspective shifted as he delved deeper into the advancements made in natural language processing models. He acknowledged the competitive landscape, especially during the race to achieve impressive feats in game-playing, such as Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo Zero demos.
Scott’s revelations about the capability gaps between Microsoft and Google for model training raised serious concerns within the company. The realization that Microsoft was several years behind in terms of machine learning scale prompted the decision to invest significantly in OpenAI to bridge the gap and stay competitive in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
