The remaining 47% of the OpenAI Group is owned by current and former employees, and investors. — Reuters
SAN JOSE: US software giant Microsoft said on Tuesday it has signed a new agreement with OpenAI, giving it a 27% stake in the ChatGPT developer and access to the artificial intelligence (AI) company's technology until 2032.
The stake is currently valued at around US$135bil (RM565.9bil), Microsoft said.
Investors responded with a temporary 3% rise in Microsoft's share price, lifting its market value above the US$4 trillion (RM16.7 trillion) mark.
OpenAI on Tuesday announced its updated structure after a long-awaited restructuring programme.
The basic structure, under which the non-profit OpenAI Foundation controls the for-profit company, remains in place. OpenAI Foundation now holds a 26% stake in the OpenAI Group, which is responsible for business activities.
Additional voting rights for the non-profit organization are intended to ensure control.
The remaining 47% of the OpenAI Group is owned by current and former employees, and investors.
Former OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk is attempting to torpedo the restructuring in court, while his AI company xAI looks to rival ChatGPT with its tool Grok.
ChatGPT's release around three years ago sparked the hype surrounding AI. The language model currently has around 800 million users per week, according to OpenAI.
Microsoft has supported OpenAI since its early days, providing the young company with computing power and billions of dollars for training AI models.
In return, the software giant secured access to OpenAI's technologies and integrated them into its products.
Other tech giants including Google and Meta, as well as young AI companies, are developing their own alternatives to ChatGPT. – dpa
