{"text":[[{"start":11,"text":"Microsoft has unveiled its latest midsized AI model as it seeks to gain a foothold in the technology, but chief Mustafa Suleyman said the tech giant still lacks the computing power needed to build cutting-edge systems."}],[{"start":25.240000000000002,"text":"The software giant on Thursday released a speech transcription model that Suleyman called the most advanced of its kind, as it steps up efforts to close in on rivals and reduce its reliance on OpenAI. "}],[{"start":40.99,"text":"Microsoft has yet to release large language models capable of competing in more sophisticated areas such as coding and text generation, where it lags market leaders Anthropic, Google and OpenAI."}],[{"start":55.620000000000005,"text":"“We are not able to build models in the very largest scale yet although our computation ramp is coming to enable us to do that later this year,” Suleyman, the company’s AI chief, told the FT. "}],[{"start":68.71000000000001,"text":"“So we’re competing in the mid-class range,” he said, adding this was “optimal” in terms of balancing cost, performance, quality and large-scale usage."}],[{"start":79.55000000000001,"text":"Microsoft has been investing heavily to achieve “self-sufficiency” in AI models after restructuring its exclusive relationship with OpenAI late last year. "}],[{"start":90.65,"text":"It is working to develop frontier models that will enable it to power a number of its commercial and consumer services without relying on third parties."}],[{"start":100.58000000000001,"text":"Microsoft, which has one of the world’s largest cloud computing businesses, has to balance the allocation of data centre capacity for its own internal AI efforts with customers such as OpenAI as well as its traditional enterprise software. "}],[{"start":117.17000000000002,"text":"The company has, like other providers, also been hamstrung in the delivery of capacity due to factors including local opposition as well as shortages of equipment, power and labour. "}],[{"start":130.15,"text":"Suleyman’s comments suggest these constraints are weighing on its internal AI development."}],[{"start":136.29,"text":"He was speaking to the FT from an off-site meeting in Miami for the tech giant’s new Superintelligence team. He and chief executive Satya Nadella this week addressed the 350-strong group about Microsoft’s “long-term compute roadmap” and objectives."}],[{"start":153.43,"text":"The Google DeepMind co-founder joined Microsoft in 2024 to lead its consumer AI effort. He set up the Superintelligence team late last year amid contract renegotiations between Microsoft and OpenAI. "}],[{"start":169.21,"text":"The new deal allows OpenAI to agree cloud computing deals with Microsoft’s rivals, but also frees the software giant to build its own advanced models and compete directly with the start-up."}],[{"start":184.65,"text":"Microsoft unveiled its first foundation model MAI-1 last year which it said was an “in-house mixture-of-experts model” that had been trained on 15,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs. This model is in preview and not generally available. "}],[{"start":201.73000000000002,"text":"Suleyman has poached staff from rivals including Google and recently hired Ali Farhadi, former chief executive of the Allen Institute in Seattle, to bolster his team’s ranks. "}],[{"start":213.67000000000002,"text":"“The mission of our lab is to deliver AI self-sufficiency for Microsoft over the next two or three years,” he said. “This means building the [chip] clusters that are frontier scale, investing in the data budgets, so that over the next few years we can get to the state of the art.” "}],[{"start":232.4,"text":"Suleyman said the team was focused on driving down the costs of AI tools and that its transcription model would undercut rivals on pricing. “We expect to see an enormous amount of demand,” he said. "}],[{"start":245.49,"text":"His role within the company was reduced last month to focus purely on model development. Former Snap executive Jacob Andreou was placed in charge of all Copilot-branded AI products and reports directly to Nadella. "}],[{"start":271.83,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1775181845_7145.mp3"}