Microsoft CEO Nadella Says Will "Fully Utilize" New Agreement with OpenAI
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was directly asked by Wall Street analysts on Wednesday local time how the revised partnership with OpenAI would affect the company's financial performance. Nadella said the new agreement is a good deal for all parties and emphasized that he always focuses on a "win-win" structure in partnerships, as this is the only way to sustain partnerships in the long term.
Nadella pointed out that Microsoft still retains the right to use OpenAI's intellectual property, including its models and agent products, but unlike before, Microsoft no longer needs to pay OpenAI for these technologies. Regarding Microsoft's ability to use OpenAI's most advanced AI technology royalty-free until 2032, Nadella said Microsoft has a cutting-edge model and access to the corresponding intellectual property rights, which will continue until 2032, and Microsoft "fully intends to fully utilize it."
Previously, there was widespread speculation that under the new agreement, Microsoft would no longer have exclusive access to OpenAI technology, which could weaken its leading edge in the field of artificial intelligence. At the same time, OpenAI quickly announced that it would launch exclusive AI products with Amazon, Microsoft's biggest competitor in the cloud computing field, further exacerbating market discussions about Microsoft's competitive position.
However, Nadella doesn't seem to be concerned about these worries. In the earnings report released on Wednesday – which is also the last quarter under the full effect of the old agreement – Microsoft disclosed that its AI business annualized revenue run rate has exceeded $37 billion, a year-on-year increase of 123%. This figure shows that despite the change in the cooperation model, Microsoft's AI and cloud businesses continue to maintain strong growth momentum.
Nadella also said that Microsoft can still generate revenue from OpenAI in other ways. He said that OpenAI itself is an important customer of Microsoft, not only using Microsoft's AI accelerator-related services, but also purchasing other computing resources, so Microsoft hopes to continue to provide it with high-quality services; in addition, Microsoft also holds equity in OpenAI. The article further pointed out that the value Nadella refers to includes OpenAI's commitment to purchase more than $250 billion in Microsoft cloud services, as well as Microsoft's 27% stake in OpenAI.
When talking about enterprise customer needs, Nadella emphasized that many companies now want to use multiple AI models at the same time, so OpenAI's relative importance in the entire industry, especially in the enterprise market, is no longer as dominant as before. He said that Microsoft, as a hyperscale cloud service provider, offers the widest selection of models, allowing customers to choose between OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source models, and other solutions based on different workloads. Currently, more than 10,000 customers are using more than one model.
The report concludes by pointing out that whether this new agreement can ultimately achieve a "win-win" remains to be seen; but at least at the current stage, Microsoft continues to deliver solid growth and profit performance in its cloud business.