Microsoft‘s leaked internal emails shed light on the company’s intense focus on catching up to Google in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). In a 2019 email, Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott expressed deep concern to CEO Satya Nadella and co-founder Bill Gates about Microsoft falling behind Google in AI development. Scott acknowledged underestimating competitor investment and admitted Microsoft was “several years behind” in machine learning capabilities.
A 6-month head start allowed Google to develop even larger models and get further ahead.
This lag was evident in replicating Google’s BERT large language model. Despite having a model template, Microsoft’s infrastructure limitations resulted in a nearly 6-month training delay compared to Google. This head start allowed Google to refine BERT and develop even larger models, leading to significant improvements in search question-answering and Gmail’s autocompletion function (according to Scott, competitor performance in these areas jumped by 10 percentage points).
Fueled by this urgency, Microsoft partnered with OpenAI in 2019 with a $1 billion investment. Their collaboration has deepened significantly, with Microsoft’s total investment estimated to be over $13 billion (as of May 1, 2024). This substantial investment underscores Microsoft’s aggressive pursuit of AI dominance, a field critical to compete with Google and maintain its technological standing.
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(VIA)
