Microsoft became the world leader in AI by investing $13 billion in OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, then using ChatGPT as the engine behind its Copilot AI assistant, which it has integrated into just about every product it creates.
But that was just the first phase of Microsoft’s AI plans. Now it’s launched the next one: hosting AI models and services from the world’s biggest AI companies and startups, essentially its competitors. Microsoft says it’s hosting more than 1,900 AI models, from Meta’s Llama AI, to Musk’s xAI, to European startups Mistral and Black Forest Labs, to China’s DeepSeek and beyond.
That way, even if Copilot doesn’t pan out the way Microsoft hopes, it will share in its competitors’ successes. This strategy likely guarantees that Microsoft will remain the world’s biggest AI company.
This story originally appeared on Computerworld
