Tech giant, Microsoft, has unveiled its AI Access Principles, a document highlighting its role and responsibility in the development of AI globally.
The company unveiled the document at the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to Microsoft, these new principles help put in context the new investments and programs it announced and launched across Europe over the past two weeks.
The investments, it said, include $5.6 billion in new AI data centres and new AI skilling programs that will reach more than a million people.
This comes as the company backing OpenAI also announced a new partnership with France’s leading AI company, Mistral AI.
- “We’ve also launched new public-private partnerships to advance responsible AI adoption and protect cybersecurity, new AI technology services to support network operators. As much as anything, these investments and programs make clear how we will put these principles into practice, not just in Europe, but in the United States and around the world,” Microsoft stated in the document.
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Bigger investments in AI
Highlighting the role AI is playing in the global economy, including creating new job opportunities, Microsoft said it is now ready to make bigger investments in the technology.
- “Like other general-purpose technologies in the past, AI is creating a new sector of the economy. This new AI economy is creating not just new opportunities for existing enterprises, but new companies and entirely new business categories.
- “The principles we’re announcing today commit Microsoft to bigger investments, more business partnerships, and broader programs to promote innovation and competition than any prior initiative in the company’s 49-year history.
- “By publishing these principles, we are committing ourselves to providing the broad technology access needed to empower organizations and individuals around the world to develop and use AI in ways that will serve the public good,” the company stated.
AI skilling
Microsoft said it recognizes that countries need more than advanced AI chips and data centres to sustain their competitive edge and unlock economic growth and that is why it is marrying AI infrastructure capacity with AI skilling capability, combining the two to advance innovation.
- “In just the past few months, we’ve combined billions of dollars of infrastructure investments with new programs to bring AI skills to millions of people in countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain.
- “We’re launching training programs focused on building AI fluency, developing AI technical skills, supporting AI business transformation, and promoting safe and responsible AI development.”
What you should know
The announcement of Microsoft’s AI Principles comes at the same time that the company is facing increasing regulatory scrutiny for its $13 billion investment in OpenAI, which currently gives it a 49% stake in the startup that is leading the charge for generative AI services globally.
In January, the European competition watchdog said that it was assessing whether the investment falls under antitrust rules. The investigation is particularly looking at how third parties might use Microsoft’s platforms and services to develop AI products, a critical business area, and enterprise service that the company hopes to develop in coming years.
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