Artificial intelligence is not flash in the pan — it is here to stay. Gartner says more than 80% of enterprises will have used some form of generative AI APIs or applications by 2026. If you plan to be among those 80%, then you have to determine the best way to train and deploy it, on premises or in the cloud. AI training requires specialized hardware that is very, very expensive compared to standard server equipment. It starts at the mid-six figures and can run into the several-million-dollar range. And that hardware cannot be repurposed for other uses such as databases. In addition to purcha ..read more

Elon Musk, one of OpenAI’s founding board members and investors, has filed a lawsuit against the company and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the now Microsoft-financed creator of ChatGPT has breached its founding mission. “This case is filed to compel OpenAI to adhere to the founding agreement and return to its mission to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of humanity, not to personally benefit the individual defendants and the largest technology company in the world,” the lawyers wrote as part of the suit. The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of California in ..read more

Google Cloud has joined AWS and Europe-based Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) in protesting Microsoft’s anticompetitive cloud software licensing practices in the EU. “Microsoft’s cloud licensing restrictions restrict choice and create harmful downstream impacts for companies, ranging from higher costs to more security breaches to a chilling effect on smaller cloud and software providers including European AI startups,” Amit Zavery, vice president of platforms at Google Cloud, wrote on X. Microsoft should end the arbitrary “Listed Provider” designation and allow custome ..read more

Microsoft has partnered with Mistral AI to make the latter available to its Azure customers, adding more options to enterprise customers. Mistral AI is set to enrich Azure’s AI offerings, introducing its premium models via Azure AI Studio’s Models as a Service (MaaS) and the Azure Machine Learning model catalog. This move complements the existing array of OpenAI models, broadening the catalog with a versatile mix of open source and proprietary AI solutions, thereby enhancing the options available to Azure customers. “This latest addition of Mistral AI’s premium models into Models as a Service ..read more

Microsoft has partnered with Mistral AI to make the latter available to its Azure customers, adding more options to enterprise customers. Mistral AI is set to enrich Azure’s AI offerings, introducing its premium models via Azure AI Studio’s Models as a Service (MaaS) and the Azure Machine Learning model catalog. This move complements the existing array of OpenAI models, broadening the catalog with a versatile mix of open source and proprietary AI solutions, thereby enhancing the options available to Azure customers. “This latest addition of Mistral AI’s premium models into Models as a Service ..read more

Microsoft plans to quadruple its investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure in Spain, spending €1.95 billion ($2.1 billion) there in the next two years as part of CEO Satya Nadella’s commitment to promote digital innovation and the responsible use of AI.  Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, met with Pedro Sánchez, President of the Spanish government, to present what is the company's largest investment in Spain in its almost four decades of presence in the country. Smith is touring European nations to talk up Microsoft’s investments in the continent. Last week, he ..read more

Google parent company Alphabet and Microsoft have both announced huge investments in artificial intelligence in Western Europe this week, likely to get ahead of proposed European Union AI regulations likely to be introduced in April. A new Google AI hub in Paris will eventually host more than 300 Google researchers and engineers, including members of the Chrome and YouTube development teams, according to the French Finance Ministry. The goal of the new AI hub is to accelerate the development of AI-based products in France, to create new academic and research partnerships, and to increase adopt ..read more

OpenAI’s GPT store promises to expand the user base for the company and will contribute to the growing AI ecosystem ..read more

Enterprise IT for the last couple of years has grown disappointed in the economics — not to mention the cybersecurity and compliance impact — of corporate clouds. In general, with a few exceptions, enterprises have done little about it; most saw the scalability and efficiencies too seductive. Might that change in 2024 and 2025? Apple has begun talking about efforts to add higher-end compute capabilities to its chip, following similar efforts from Intel and NVIDIA. Although those new capabilities are aimed at enabling more large language model (LLM) capabilities on-device, anything that ca ..read more

Revenue for public cloud services for companies such as Microsoft, AWS, and Google increased 19% year over year in the first half of 2023 on the back of the increased adoption of AI and organizations' persistent interest in moving more and more resources to the cloud, according to tech market research and advisory company IDC. Worldwide revenue for the public cloud services market reached $315.5 billion in the first half of 2023, according to new data compiled by IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker. Last year revenue for the same period was $264.8 billion, while the market ..read more