{"slug": "microsoft-ai-chief-says-the-company-beat-openai-at-its-own-game-using-a-quarter", "title": "Microsoft AI chief says the company beat OpenAI at its own game, using a quarter of the computing power", "summary": "Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told employees at a Thursday town hall that the company's newly announced MAI-Base-2 model is a stronger pre-trained base model than the one powering OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol, and that Microsoft used one-quarter of the compute OpenAI used to train its model. Suleyman also said MAI-Base-2 used 12 times less computation than DeepSeek, which a Microsoft blog post identified as DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Base. Microsoft announced MAI-Base-2 earlier on Thursday and declined to comment; OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.", "body_md": "# Microsoft AI chief says the company beat OpenAI at its own game, using a quarter of the computing power\n\n[Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com)\n\nMicrosoft AI CEO said its latest AI model outperforms an OpenAI base model on certain pre-training metrics using a quarter of the compute.\n\n- Microsoft AI recently announced its latest model MAI-Base-2.\n- AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman compared the model to a similar offering from [OpenAI](https://www.machinebrief.com/glossary/openai) .\n- Microsoft trained its model more efficiently than OpenAI, he said in an internal meeting.\n\n[Microsoft](https://www.businessinsider.com/category/microsoft) AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told employees an in-house model was better than a similar offering from [OpenAI](https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-dots-head-ai-lets-workers-do-less-or-more-2026-10), one of the software giant's biggest customers and partners. \n\n\"We now have a stronger pre-trained base model than the model that currently powers [GPT](https://www.machinebrief.com/glossary/gpt) 5.6 Sol,\" Suleyman said during a town hall meeting with employees on Thursday. \"And in fact, we used one-quarter of the [compute](https://www.machinebrief.com/glossary/compute) that OpenAI used to train their model.\"\n\n[Pre-training](https://www.machinebrief.com/glossary/pre-training) is the first stage of building an AI model, when it learns patterns from huge amounts of text, images, and other information. This takes massive amounts of expensive computing power, so Microsoft could save money if it's worked out a way to do this more efficiently. \n\nMicrosoft announced the model, MAI-Base-2, [earlier on Thursday](https://microsoft.ai/news/frontier-pre-training-at-microsoft-ai/). \n\nSuleyman said Microsoft privately tested this model against OpenAI models, including one nicknamed \"Spud\" that powers GPT-5.6. He added that Microsoft's model performed better on tests measuring how well AI can understand and predict patterns in information.\n\nThe comparisons are based on technical information Microsoft has about OpenAI's models, Suleyman said.\n\n\"Privately and confidentially, we've also compared it to the OpenAI models,\" Suleyman told employees, while suggesting that Microsoft has special access to information on how OpenAI models perform.\n\nIt's notable that Suleyman would choose to highlight limitations of OpenAI models, even in private discussions. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, and owns a stake in the startup that is likely worth more than $100 billion. Any criticism of OpenAI could potentially dent the value of this huge investment.\n\nThe two companies also have a major partnership, with Microsoft offering OpenAI models to its Azure cloud customers. Microsoft has used OpenAI models for its own products such as [Copilot](https://www.machinebrief.com/compare/github-copilot-vs-cursor), too. \n\nBut the relationship between the two companies has frayed in the past year or so. Increasingly, Microsoft has tried to branch out from OpenAI, including by working on its own models.\n\nSuleyman also said Microsoft's new AI model used \"12 times less computation than was used for [DeepSeek](https://www.machinebrief.com/compare/llama-4-vs-deepseek-r1), for example, on compute efficiency.\" \n\nSuleyman didn't specify which DeepSeek model, but a [public blog post](https://microsoft.ai/news/frontier-pre-training-at-microsoft-ai/) described the pre-[training](https://www.machinebrief.com/glossary/training) of MAI-Base-2 being a lot more efficient than a similar offering from the Chinese lab, called DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Base.\n\nMicrosoft in March created a new combined team for its commercial and consumer Copilot products and [reassigned Suleyman](https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-combines-copilot-teams-and-mustafa-suleyman-superintelligence-memos-2026-3) to focus on building AI models in the company's superintelligence unit.\n\nMicrosoft declined to comment and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.\n\n*Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at* __astewart@businessinsider.com__ *or Signal at +1-425-344-8242. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device;* __here's our guide to sharing information securely__*.*\n\n[Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ai-ceo-new-model-beats-openai-using-less-compute-2026-10)\n\nGet AI news in your inbox\n\nDaily digest of what matters in AI.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-ai-chief-says-the-company-beat-openai-at-its-own-game-using-a-quarter", "canonical_source": "https://www.machinebrief.com/news/microsoft-ai-chief-says-the-company-beat-openai-at-its-own-g-0c4t", "published_at": "2026-10-15 23:31:44+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-16 00:29:52.418571+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "ai-research", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Microsoft", "Mustafa Suleyman", "OpenAI", "MAI-Base-2", "GPT-5.6 Sol", "DeepSeek", "DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Base", "Copilot"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-ai-chief-says-the-company-beat-openai-at-its-own-game-using-a-quarter", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-ai-chief-says-the-company-beat-openai-at-its-own-game-using-a-quarter.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-ai-chief-says-the-company-beat-openai-at-its-own-game-using-a-quarter.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-ai-chief-says-the-company-beat-openai-at-its-own-game-using-a-quarter.jsonld"}}