Microsoft’s top technologist is placing OpenAI at the center of the company’s future, while acknowledging growing demand for rival Anthropic.
Speaking at Italian Tech Week in Turin, Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott compares the OpenAI partnership to Microsoft’s foundational alliances in the personal computing era.
He recalls how the Intel–Microsoft alignment once defined the rise of the PC industry.
“OpenAI is maybe the most important partner that Microsoft has ever had. And Microsoft is in this interesting position that we’ve had over its 50-year history a bunch of important partners. It used to be the thing that drove the entirety of the personal computing industry, which was the technology industry. It was this partnership between Intel and Microsoft.
And to a certain extent, one of the things that’s driving the technology industry right now is this partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI. So from my point of view, I’m the CTO. I’m the one who did the initial OpenAI deals, and I’m still responsible for helping us build the right infrastructure into the future to make sure that OpenAI is getting the compute that it needs, because their growth is just breathtaking and wondrous to watch.”
But Scott notes that customers are also asking for alternatives. He says Microsoft’s partnership with Anthropic cements the tech giant’s role as a platform provider that offers flexibility.
“Our approach is, Microsoft is a platform company, and as a platform company, you have to give your customers what they’re asking for. And the thing that I will say in the API business, like the overwhelming thing that customers are asking for is OpenAI models. But in some places, they’re asking for Anthropic models. In some places, they want to serve open-source models. In some places, they want to serve models that they’ve developed themselves…
And in order to be the platform that people choose, you actually have to give your customers the things that they want.”
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