Microsoft (MSFT.US) plans to expand its physical infrastructure to train its own artificial intelligence (AI) models, hoping these models can compete with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Microsoft's Consumer AI Chief Mustafa Suleyman told employees at an all-hands meeting on Thursday that the company will make "massive investments" in its own computing capacity clusters to train models.

According to attendees, Suleyman told staff that for a company of Microsoft's scale, having self-sufficiency capabilities in artificial intelligence is crucial. He added that Microsoft has adopted a strategy of simultaneously deepening cooperation with OpenAI, partnering with other model manufacturers, and building its own proprietary models.

The world's largest software manufacturer primarily relies on OpenAI's large language models to power its products. However, as both companies launch competing products and seek more partnerships, signs of tension have emerged in their relationship. Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, joined Microsoft last year to lead the company's development of proprietary models and created a consumer franchise program focused on artificial intelligence.

Last month, Microsoft released its first large language model developed under Suleyman's leadership. The model was trained on 15,000 NVIDIA H100 chips. Suleyman added that the computing clusters used by cutting-edge models developed by companies like Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google, and Elon Musk's xAI are 6 to 10 times larger than Microsoft's, indicating that Microsoft's model creation is more efficient.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella added that Microsoft's plan is to adopt a multi-model strategy for all its products, selecting appropriate AI models based on customer preferences. Earlier this week, it was reported that the company plans to use Anthropic models in some of its products.

Additionally, it was reported that Microsoft and OpenAI said on Thursday they have signed a non-binding agreement on new terms for their relationship, which will allow OpenAI to advance its restructuring plans to become a for-profit company.