Microsoft, a longstanding leader in the technology industry, has a checkered history with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Before its recent courtship with OpenAI, its researchers had been working on AI since the 1990s. But it had faced setbacks with products like Cortana and Tay. An insipid Cortana faded away fast, but it was Tay, its AI chatbot, that burnt Microsoft badly when it ended up becoming a neo-Nazi sexbot and had to be discontinued.
As recently as a year ago, it was still struggling with AI. While trying out Microsoft’s search engine powered by AI, technology reporters, had a series of extremely disturbing conversations Bing’s chatbot which included name calling, verbal abuse and flirting.
A Big Fat (mostly) Asian Wedding
It was CEO Satya Nadella who recognised early that AI will the key strategic lever for its business. In a strategic shift over the past two years, Microsoft has made significant investments in AI in the US, Europe, Middle East and East Asia.
In April-May this year, Nadela was handing out billions of dollars like candy during his whirlwind tour of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia where he unveiled major AI, data centre and cloud investments in these countries. Similar announcements were made in Japan and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Microsoft’s most recent announcement was about a € 4 Billion (US$ 4.3 Billion) investment in France. All these initiatives were aimed at bolstering AI infrastructure and accessibility for regional enterprises to gain operational efficiency and tackle complex challenges.
Will this recent spate of billion-dollar investments finally help Microsoft become a force to reckon with when it comes to AI?
Industry experts weigh in
Damon Lim, Regional Director- Asia Pacific, research firm datacenterHawk says, “Microsoft is making AI more accessible in each of these countries to enterprises who are seeking AI as a means to boost efficiencies within their organizations and to solve problems that would take humans, years to get to.”
Credit must go to CEO Satya Nadella who saw AI emerging, points out Jack McCauley, the engineer, inventor and hardware designer, who is best known for revolutionising the gaming industry by designing guitars and drums for the Guitar Hero franchise, as we as co-founding Oculus VR, that produced VR gaming headsets.
“Microsoft has a good CEO and has put the company in the right direction,” he says, adding that he surprised everyone by flipping Microsoft from a legacy tech company of the late 1970s into a software titan with a big AI footprint.
Lim emphasises that Microsoft’s AI game got stronger only after it partnered with OpenAI bringing. “The investment in OpenAI has brought Microsoft to the forefront with developments like GPT-3,” a product that the masses deemed useful for their daily lives. This has made even more seek access for GPT-3 and now there is a waitlist, he adds.
This development has propelled Microsoft to pole position in the AI landscape. But the software giant must not become complacent as the competitive landscape is fierce. Tech giants like Oracle, Dell and Amazon have made significant AI investments. Like Microsoft, their rivals have deep pockets too.
Looking ahead, Lim says, “Microsoft would need to focus on use cases of enterprises and establish the right partners in each country to leverage the newly built AI infrastructure.”
The company’s recent investments and strategic partnerships signal a renewed commitment to this critical technology. The coming months will tell if Microsoft is able to overcome past stumbles and walk down the A.I.sle head held high. We will continue to monitor its progress in the ever-evolving AI landscape.
