登录查看更多内容

Microsoft and the AI economy

发布日期: 2024年3月13日

+ 关注

Microsoft expands its AI dominance through a partnership with Mistral

1. Key players & company overview

Second-biggest cloud provider (after Amazon) In Q4 2023, its Azure cloud service sales grew by 30%
“AI Access Principles” – a commitment to make AI “broadly available” and to foster competition
Commitment for $5.6bn investments in new data centers and cloud infrastructure in the EU (includes $3.5bn investments in DE over 2 years)
Goal: To build up its computing power in the EU

Develops algorithmic models similar to those from OpenAIDifferences to OpenAI (second mover advantages):
Models are open-source and shared openly
The training model is more efficient and two times less expensive to implement
Differentiating product: Mistral Large (a model with “unique reasoning capacities” in 5 languages)

Microsoft:? Stock market value above $3tr (the worldwide largest market capitalization as of March 2024)

Mistral: Valued at about $2b in December 2023

Seed financing: $111m in June 2023 - led by Lightspeed Venture Partners (one of the largest seed rounds in the EU)
Series A: $415m from various investors in December 2023 - led by Andreessen Horowitz (including Salesforce Inc., Nvidia Corp. with convertible debt)
Extension of Series A investment round: $16.3m invested by Microsoft for less than 1% of equity

More computing power to train the AI models
Mistral AI’s premium models will be available to customers through the Model as a Service (MaaS) in Azure
A research and development collaboration to build applications for governments across EU

Geopolitical issue that the EU isn’t capitalizing on the internet boom. Why?

Many national countries with distinct cultures and languages → no upfront access to a huge market
EU has failed to disburse capital to startups
Strict regulations and policies withhold growth

Aleph Alpha GmbH - DE AI startup, 2019, Jonas Andrullis (Founder and CEO)

Flagship model: Luminous
Raised in total more than $640m as of Nov 2023Differences with Mistral:
Design of the product: Aleph Alpha focuses on explainability (user sees the steps that the AI goes through to make a decision), data security, compliance, sovereign AI whereas Mistral - on efficient processing and open-source availability
Performance: Mistral’s large-language model is more efficient at processing large data and images
Target group: Aleph Alpha is targeting sensitive and regulated industries, Mistral is for a broader audience;
Clients:Aleph Alpha’s “top-down strategy”: Schwarz Gruppe (retail, includes Lidl and Kaufland), Bosch (tech), SAP (software).Mistral’s “bottom-up strategy” : BNP Paribas (bank), Orange (telecommunications), CMA CGM (logistics firm).
Goals: Aleph Alpha develops domain-specific language models, Mistral - general models directly revering OpenAI
Investors: Aleph Alpha’s investors are predominantly DE, Mistral’s - US
Other competitors will not be discussed here.

The deal is to be examined by the EU Watchdog because of monopoly concerns. Why?

Microsoft is already the chief financial backer and business partner of OpenAI (valued at $80bn in Feb 2024)

Investment of $13bn for 49% of OpenAI & no ownership
Microsoft is entitled to 75% of OpenAI’s profits until repayment of $13bn investment
Then, 49% of OpenAI’s profits until Microsoft reaches a profit of $92bn
Microsoft’s shares will then revert to OpenAI’s non-profit foundation→ antitrust probes in the US, EU and in the UK