{"id":449187,"date":"2026-05-14T22:09:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/449187\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T22:09:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:09:20","slug":"microsoft-eyes-ai-acquisitions-ahead-of-openai-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/449187\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Eyes AI Acquisitions Ahead of OpenAI Split"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft<\/a> is reportedly looking to acquire startups to help it launch a new artificial intelligence model, Reuters reported<\/a> Wednesday (May 13).<\/p>\n

The report characterized the move as preparation by the tech giant for a future separate from OpenAI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Microsoft had considered acquiring code-generation startup Cursor but rejected the idea due to in-house concerns that Microsoft\u2019s ownership of GitHub Copilot<\/a> would not sit well with regulators, the report said.<\/p>\n

Microsoft is in talks with AI startup Inception<\/a>, according to the report. The company\u2019s M12 venture fund took part in a $50 million seed funding round for Inception late last year. Deals such as this would allow Microsoft to better compete with the likes of OpenAI.<\/p>\n

The two companies have been partners since Microsoft invested $1 billion in a then-unknown AI startup. Since then, Microsoft has given $11.8 billion of the $13 billion<\/a> it pledged to OpenAI, the report said, citing a securities filing from Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Microsoft has spent more than $100 billion on its OpenAI investments and its costs of developing infrastructure and hosting, Michael Wetter<\/a>, who heads the company\u2019s corporate development, testified in court on Wednesday, per the report.<\/p>\n

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The companies\u2019 relationship has shifted and, at times, been contentious<\/a> over the years. OpenAI found that its needs were greater than what Microsoft could supply, the report said. Microsoft was also contractually blocked from building a foundation model that could compete with OpenAI\u2019s offerings.<\/p>\n

An amended deal late last year permitted Microsoft to develop artificial general intelligence<\/a>, a theoretical version of AI that can perform tasks at or above the levels a human, according to the report.<\/p>\n

In late April, OpenAI and Microsoft agreed to a deal<\/a> that allows OpenAI to build some products with Microsoft\u2019s competitors like Amazon<\/a>. Microsoft will remain a major shareholder in OpenAI but will stop paying a revenue share to the startup.<\/p>\n

After Microsoft\u2019s latest earnings<\/a> report in April, PYMNTS wrote the company\u2019s performance \u201cmust be viewed in the context of a competitive AI landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

While its rivals are spending heavily on infrastructure and models, few of them can compete with Microsoft\u2019s combination of scale, enterprise relationships and integrated suite of products.<\/p>\n

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft is reportedly looking to acquire startups to help it launch a new artificial intelligence model, Reuters reported…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[21256,220,218,219,61,60,1071,43,1682,179,1884,80,181],"class_list":["post-449187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-acquisitions","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-microsoft","tag-news","tag-openai","tag-pymnts-news","tag-startups","tag-technology","tag-whats-hot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}