The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) filed a lawsuit against Google in a long-standing antitrust case dating back to 2020. After over 3 years, the process is still ongoing in court, with both parties expected to make closing statements this month (May 2024).
During the court proceedings, the DoJ has called in witnesses and documents from several of Google’s competitors, including Microsoft. Most recently, an internal email from Microsoft has been referenced in the case, giving us insight into how Microsoft views investments in OpenAI.
The email, penned by Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s CTO, was sent to Satya Nadella and Bill Gates in June 2019 with the subject line “Thoughts on OpenAI.”
Scott expressed concerns that both OpenAI and Google (including Google Brain and DeepMind, which were separate entities at the time) had made significant advancements in AI, particularly evident in their data center design, infrastructure, networking, software, compilers, and chip levels. He worried that Microsoft’s potential couldn’t keep up with both companies.
Scott used the example of Google’s BERT language model, explaining that Microsoft couldn’t easily replicate it, even with model templates in place. Microsoft would take around 6 months to train a similar model due to their inadequate infrastructure. This delay is why Google’s BERT model led to improved search results, with Google Search benefiting greatly from its implementation. Additionally, Scott praised Gmail’s autocomplete feature, powered by BERT, as remarkably effective.
The rest of the email contents were redacted for confidentiality reasons, but Nadella forwarded the email to Amy Hood, Microsoft’s CFO, with a directive to persuade her to invest $1 billion in OpenAI the following month (July 2019).
Source: Business Insider, The Verge
TLDR: The Department of Justice continues the antitrust case against Google, involving evidence from Microsoft’s internal email discussing concerns about Microsoft’s ability to keep up with Google and OpenAI in AI advancements. Nadella pushes for a billion-dollar investment in OpenAI.
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