The AI war is on and it's getting hotter and hotter as Microsoft announced that it is teaming up with Elon Musk's Open AI. The alliance is set to go head to head against Amazon and Google in the AI race.
Open AI is a $1 billion AI research that is nonprofit which Musk co-founded with Y Combinator president Sam Altman. One of the company's project is to create a robot that would do the housework. However, it is also aiming to create chatbots that will eventually talk to humans naturally or ask clarifying questions if it doesn't understand the task you want it to do for you. Aside from that, they also want to build intelligent agents that can conquer games similar to how Google's DeepMind defeated the world's best Go player.
Microsoft Azure, on the other hand, has open-sourced the deep learning tools they used in developing Cortana and Skype Translate; thus giving other users to teach their own AI.
With the partnership, OpenAI has access to Microsoft Azure's cloud computing to conduct its large-scale AI experiments. These tools include the computation-boosting Batch and the early use of the GPU-based Azure N-series virtual machines. These machines will be open for general use next month. Microsoft, on the other hand, gets deep access to OpenAI's experts and robotics.
Scott Guthrie, Executive VP of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise, said that they want to have a "good feedback loop going" so that they can build better platforms. He also added that any application is going to weave AI and Microsoft wants to become the company that helps developer do the weaving.
Guthrie also added that with the collaboration, both companies hope they will be able to build a richer and wider ecosystem that is largely powered by artificial intelligence. Guthrie pointed out that Uber is already working with Azure to develop apps that would make their services better through the use of AI.
