OpenAI's $500 billion investment in computing infrastructure changes its relationship with Microsoft. The tech giant will no longer be the ChatGPT maker's exclusive cloud partner for its sophisticated AI advances.

If you've read about the Microsoft-OpenAI relationship over the past few years, you'd know that apart from its financial investments, Microsoft was also the exclusive cloud infra provider to OpenAI. While the former is still there,

Microsoft has clarified its partnership with OpenAI after the latter announced a $500 billion data center initiative.

We are thrilled to continue our strategic partnership with OpenAI and to partner on Stargate. Today’s announcement is complementary to what our two companies have been working on together since 2019.

Microsoft has ended its exclusive partnership with OpenAI as the sole provider of data center infrastructure. The development comes just as OpenAI announced Stargate, a new $500 billion AI infrastructure deal with SoftBank, Oracle, and others.

Microsoft has revised its agreement with OpenAI, allowing the AI company to partner with other cloud service providers (CSPs). However, Microsoft retains the Right of First Refusal (ROFR), giving it a priority to match any competing offers before OpenAI commits to other providers.

Microsoft’s absence from OpenAI’s Stargate announcement follows months of tension between the companies and signals a new era in which the longtime partners will be less reliant on each other. At a White House press conference,

Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI has ‘evolved’ to include a right of first refusal on supplying new capacity.