Microsoft to Bring OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI Model to US Government Agencies

Microsoft Corp. will soon offer artificial intelligence (AI) models from ChatGPT creator OpenAI to its Azure Government cloud computing service users, including different US agencies. The platform is set to release two of the OpenAI’s large language models, GPT-3 and the latest iteration, GPT-4, through its Azure OpenAI service. The initiative aims to provide federal, state, and local government customers with some help in producing computer code, summarizing field reports, and answering research questions. OpenAI models have been gaining significant leverage since ChatGPT chatbot’s public release in late 2022, with many tech companies offering chatbots to users. Interest in AI regulation has also increased, with several congressional conversations on the matter. Azure Government users will have access to conversation-like interfaces, but not specifically ChatGPT. Microsoft hosts OpenAI models on its commercial cloud computing space, distinct from its Azure Government customers’ cloud, which adheres to specific security and data-compliance rules. Microsoft’s Bill Chappell wrote in a blog post that any data sent to Azure OpenAI stays within the platform’s systems, and that the AI model’s training data does not use Azure Government customer data.