The Information has shed some light on the nature of OpenAI’s future relationship with investors after the startup decided to abandon its move to become a fully commercial entity. Even its key investor, Microsoft, faces a revenue cap of 10%.
Image source: OpenAI
Under the terms of the current agreement, as Reuters explains with reference to The Information, Microsoft is entitled to 20% of all OpenAI revenue for the remaining time until 2030. The corporation is the largest investor in OpenAI capital, it has already invested about $14 billion in this startup, including October investments of $6.6 billion. Thus, the new OpenAI plan implies that the share of revenue deductions in favor of Microsoft will be reduced by at least half to 10% by 2030. In turn, Microsoft is interested in maintaining access to OpenAI developments and technologies in the next decade, so the parties will have to agree on mutually beneficial terms of cooperation.
Microsoft and OpenAI, riding the wave of Donald Trump’s activity since his return to the White House in January, have agreed to co-finance the $500 billion Stargate project, which involves developing the US national computing infrastructure in the field of artificial intelligence.
Microsoft representatives commented sparingly on these statements from The Information’s sources, explaining that they have a revenue sharing agreement with OpenAI for a period up to 2030, which describes the movement of funds in both directions. OpenAI representatives noted that all the details of the agreement with Microsoft have not yet been finalized.