Microsoft Taps Elon Musk-Led xAI’s Grok To Diversify AI Stack Amid OpenAI Tensions

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which leapfrogged to the pole position in artificial intelligence technology (AI), riding on strategic partner OpenAI’s advanced large-language models (LLM), has begun to look elsewhere. 

In a blog post on Monday, Microsoft Chief Communications Officer Frank Shaw said the company was bringing Elon Musk-led xAI’s Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini models to its ecosystem. These LLMs will power Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry.

Shaw said developers can now choose from more than 1,900 partner-hosted and Microsoft-hosted AI models.

The company also introduced new tools like the Model Leaderboard, which ranks the top-performing AI models across different categories and tasks.

Microsoft Partner Head of Product, Azure AI Ecosystems, Vaidyaraman Sambasivam, confirmed the availability of the Grok models in the Azure AI Foundry. He said, “Starting today, xAI’s flagship Grok 3 models are available for a free preview in Azure Foundry for the next 2 weeks. Grok models are also available to try on GitHub models.”

The development assumes importance, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has recently sought to reduce the company's reliance on Sam Altman-led OpenAI after investing heavily in it. 

A Financial Times report said Microsoft has invested about $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019. The Altman-led company’s demand for more computing power from Microsoft and the competition it posed for enterprise AI products have not gone down well with the software giant.

Nadella and Musk discussed the partnership in a pre-recorded video broadcast at Microsoft’s “Build” conference in Seattle on Monday. Nadella said, “Obviously, the exciting thing for us is to be able to launch Grok on Azure.”

Musk, meanwhile, sought feedback. “We are very much looking forward to feedback from the developer community to say, like, what do you need, where are we wrong, how can we make it better,” he said.

Incidentally, Musk sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft last year over the former’s efforts to convert itself into a for-profit venture, citing his early involvement with the ChatGPT maker.

Microsoft stock ended Monday's session up 1.01% at $458.87.

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