Microsoft are going to invests $1 BN in OpenAI startups

Microsoft recently announced plans to invest $1 billion in OpenAI, an AI startup co-founded by Elon Musk (no longer involved) and focused on developing human-level artificial intelligence.

OpenAI started 2015 with much fanfare. Industry luminaries including Musk and Peter Thiel committed at least $1 billion to the non-profit to build AI that could match or improve on the technology being developed by tech giants such as Google, Facebook Inc., and Microsoft. However, Musk said he left OpenAI's board last year over disagreements about some of the group's plans. More recently, OpenAI started a for-profit arm to help it raise more money.

The $1 billion investment goes to the for-profit arm, OpenAI LP, but the partnership is between Microsoft and the whole entity, OpenAI said.

A partnership with Microsoft, which has more than $100 billion in cash, is a quick solution to OpenAI's funding needs. But it's an about-face of sorts. The group was seen by some in the AI community as an important counter balance to large technology corporations that have snapped up talent and used their computing power and huge data hoards to leap ahead in the field.