Microsoft-OpenAI revise deal with AGI panel and Azure commitments

Microsoft and OpenAI announced a revised partnership on Tuesday that restructures OpenAI as a public benefit corporation, gives Microsoft an approximately 27 percent stake valued at about $135 billion, and commits OpenAI to purchase $250 billion in Azure cloud services over the life of the agreement. OpenAI said it had completed the recapitalization and that the nonprofit that previously controlled the company, now the OpenAI Foundation, holds roughly $130 billion in equity and continues to control the for‑profit entity.

The deal preserves Microsoft as OpenAI’s frontier model partner and extends Microsoft’s exclusive intellectual property and Azure API rights through 2032, including models developed after the point the companies describe as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. An independent expert panel will now be required to verify any OpenAI declaration that it has achieved AGI, a change from prior terms in which OpenAI self‑certified such a milestone. Microsoft said the agreement also gives both companies greater operational flexibility: OpenAI can jointly develop products with third parties and provide API access to U.S. national security customers on any cloud, while...