[HarHarVeryFunny]

OpenAI's weird contract with Microsoft, whereby Microsoft has rights to their IP/artifacts up until OpenAI's board unilaterally declares they have achieved "AGI" (meaning whatever they choose it to mean), may come back to haunt them.

Microsoft is living with the possibility of OpenAI cutting them off at any time of their choosing, as well as not being in control of a technology which is becoming increasingly important, and they are feeling it. Microsoft is trying to build their own SOTA model internally, and there is every reason to expect they will succeed - they have the GPUs, money, desire, paranoia and talent required to do it, and as we have seen from many players there is no moat.

So, what happens to OpenAI when (not if), Microsoft end their relationship? How do OpenAI sell their product, other than directly, to what extent does it cut them off from enterprise customers, can they financially handle building their own $100B datacenters if they are forced to?

[NitpickLawyer]

Pretty sure that deal is out, seeing as they did away with their "non-profit" overseeing their weird-capped-profit stuff. No-one but their lawyers probably knows for sure, tho...

[moralestapia]

>So, what happens to OpenAI when (not if), Microsoft end their relationship?

I don't know, but @sama should know (and most likely he does).

I'm not his fan. But am a fan of reality and that's what it is.

It's also not like "some guy" suddenly has to build $100B datacenters and whoops that's an issue. This is a 150BnUSD company, with millions of users and a brand that's recognized worldwide, they have plenty of options to choose from.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

> It's also not like "some guy" suddenly has to build $100B datacenters and whoops that's an issue.

I'm sure they could raise $100B if/when they need to, as long as the growth/scaling story stays intact, but $100B is still a lot. They just raised $6B, which alongside a similar amount raised by x.ai is largest raise by a startup afaik. Buying 100K GPUs atm would be a challenge too, due to supply.

In the meantime, per Dwarkesh interview with SemiAnalysis.com Dylan, Microsoft is in process of fiber-connecting multiple datacenters to make a massive meta-cluster, and this is what OpenAI would lose access to if the relationship with Microsoft sours. Amazon (partnered with Anthropic) and Meta, even x.ai, already have massive clusters, so OpenAI could find themselves temporarily in the GPU-poor club if they upset Microsoft after Microsoft make them expendable (or maybe at that point, it's "will" rather than "could").

[itsoktocry]

>Microsoft is living with the possibility of OpenAI cutting them off at any time of their choosing

There is a partnership that benefits both parties, and the legal agreement is most certainly more complicated than you're describing.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

No doubt, but nonetheless MSFT is trying to replace them as fast as possible.