February 27, 2024 – At MWC 2024, Microsoft unveiled its latest set of principles for artificial intelligence (AI) access, citing the need to address the growing role and responsibility of the company as an innovator and market leader in AI.
According to Microsoft, AI, like other general-purpose technologies in the past, is creating new economic opportunities. The principles announced today represent the company’s largest investment, partnership, and plan to foster innovation and competition in its 49-year history.
“These new principles support our recent investments and initiatives launched in Europe over the past two weeks, including a $5.6 billion investment in new AI data centers and a new AI skills initiative that will benefit over a million people,” Microsoft stated.
The AI access principles announced by Microsoft are organized into three main sections, comprising a total of 11 items:
Supporting AI Developers: Microsoft will expand its cloud-based AI infrastructure and make AI models and development tools widely available to developers around the world.
Ensuring Choice and Equity in the AI Economy: Microsoft commits to providing public APIs, supporting common public APIs, and allowing developers to choose how they distribute and sell their AI models, tools, and applications. The company also pledges not to use non-public data from AI models trained on Azure and to support customers in easily exporting and transferring their data to switch to another cloud provider.
Fulfilling Social Responsibility: Microsoft ensures the physical and cyber security of its models and data centers. The company respects enduring values and applies responsible AI standards that prioritize human-centered design decisions. Additionally, Microsoft invests in spreading AI skills globally and manages its data centers in an environmentally friendly manner.
