As the competition in Cloud Computing and AI becomes increasingly intense, there is open and covert rivalry among technology giants, $Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$ to comply with regulatory demands to terminate $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ the exclusive Cloud Computing Service with OpenAI.

On December 10, according to The Information, Google recently requested the USA Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to terminate the exclusive Cloud Computing Service agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI, which allows Microsoft to host OpenAI's technology as the exclusive provider on its Cloud Servers.

The FTC, as the USA's main federal antitrust enforcement agency, has been investigating the cooperation between Microsoft and OpenAI, and whether this cooperation restricts market competition. Google's complaint occurred during the FTC's investigation of Microsoft, during which the FTC inquired about Google's views on Microsoft's Business.

The exclusive agreement makes Microsoft the sole Cloud Service provider of OpenAI technology, which poses a significant disadvantage to other competitors such as Google and Amazon. These companies hope to host OpenAI's AI models themselves so that their Cloud customers can access OpenAI's technology without additionally using Microsoft's Servers.

The article points out that exclusive agreements are not necessarily illegal, but Microsoft's purchase of OpenAI technology could lead to additional costs for users, including data migration and employee training. Google and other competitors highlighted the potential impact of these costs on users.

A spokesperson for Google stated in a declaration that the company is committed to "building the most open AI ecosystem in the world," and mentioned a blog post by Google Cloud executive Kevin Icchpurani, expressing Google's desire to host as many AI models as possible.

Reportedly, Microsoft receives 20% of the revenue from OpenAI, which reduces Microsoft's incentive to compete with OpenAI. The FTC is investigating whether this exclusive agreement hinders other companies' competition in the AI market.

Currently, OpenAI's large language models dominate the market, with an expected revenue of 3 billion USD this year. Microsoft has also gained significant revenue by reselling OpenAI's LLMs. Although Google and Amazon are also selling their own large models, their sales are insignificant compared to OpenAI's models.

Some companies, such as Snap and Intuit, have increased their spending on Microsoft Azure because they want to use OpenAI's models. This exclusive agreement has forced these companies to turn to Microsoft for OpenAI's Technology.

Reports indicate that the FTC's investigation is not limited to the exclusive agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI, but also involves Microsoft's Software licensing practices, Cybersecurity business, and the company's growing AI products.

Editor/rice