Microsoft is no longer OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider

Microsoft was once the exclusive provider of data center infrastructure for OpenAI to train and run its AI models. No longer.

As part of Stargate, OpenAI’s massive new AI infrastructure deal with SoftBank, Oracle, and others, Microsoft says it has signed a new agreement with OpenAI that gives it “right of first refusal” on new OpenAI cloud computing capacity. That means that, going forward, Microsoft gets first choice over whether to host OpenAI’s AI workloads in the cloud — but if Microsoft can’t meet its needs, OpenAI can go to a rival cloud provider.

“OpenAI recently made a new, large Azure commitment that will continue to support all OpenAI products as well as training,” Microsoft said in a blog post. “To further support OpenAI, Microsoft has approved OpenAI’s ability to build additional capacity, primarily for research and training of models.”

OpenAI has blamed a lack of available compute for delaying its products, and compute capacity has reportedly become a source of tension between the AI company and Microsoft, its close collaborator and major investor.

In the blost post, Microsoft reiterated that “key elements” of its longstanding partnership with OpenAI remain in place through 2030, including its access to OpenAI’s IP, revenue sharing arrangements, and exclusivity on OpenAI’s APIs.

“The OpenAI API is exclusive to Azure, runs on Azure and is also available through the Azure OpenAI Service,” the blog post reads. “This agreement means customers benefit from having access to leading models on Microsoft platforms and direct from OpenAI.”

We’ve reached out to OpenAI and Microsoft for more information and will update this post if we hear back.

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