Microsoft

Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok

President Donald Trump told reporters that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations, Bloomberg reports. Although Trump didn’t elaborate, he stated that “there’s great interest in TikTok” and that there will be “a lot of people bidding on it.” Microsoft and Oracle were in the running to acquire the ByteDance-owned app back in […]

Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok Read More »

Helion raises $425M to help build a fusion reactor for Microsoft

Few fusion startups have been as closely watched as Helion. The 12-year-old company is backed by Sam Altman, rumored to be in talks with OpenAI, and has a deal to supply Microsoft with electricity by 2028 — years earlier than its competitors.  The company’s unorthodox approach to fusion power and relative secrecy has earned it

Helion raises $425M to help build a fusion reactor for Microsoft Read More »

Microsoft tests ‘scareware blocker’ for Edge that uses computer vision to detect scams

Microsoft is rolling out a new tool dubbed “scareware blocker,” which uses machine learning and computer vision to identify a very pervasive type of online scam. “Scareware” has blighted the web almost since its inception, often in the form of fake antivirus software that claims to have detected a non-existent threat on a user’s machine.

Microsoft tests ‘scareware blocker’ for Edge that uses computer vision to detect scams Read More »

The EU wants to talk to US tech companies ahead of Germany’s upcoming election

The European Union will give tech and social media companies a “stress test” to see how they handle misinformation ahead of Germany’s election next month. European Commission officials have invited tech companies, including: X, Meta, Snap, TikTok, Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, to a meeting on January 31, according to multiple news outlets. During this meeting,

The EU wants to talk to US tech companies ahead of Germany’s upcoming election Read More »

Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI cracked when it hired Mustafa Suleyman, rival Marc Benioff says

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was literally chuckling when talking to CNBC from Davos about the new rift in Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI. As part of OpenAI’s plans to team up with SoftBank and Oracle on a $500 billion data center project called Stargate, Microsoft is no longer the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI. “I think

Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI cracked when it hired Mustafa Suleyman, rival Marc Benioff says Read More »

This Week in AI: OpenAI gains an invaluable infrastructure advantage

Hiya, folks, welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. If you want this in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. OpenAI is making gains at the expense of its chief rivals. On Tuesday, the company announced the Stargate Project, a new joint venture involving Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, Oracle, and others to build AI infrastructure for OpenAI in

This Week in AI: OpenAI gains an invaluable infrastructure advantage Read More »

Microsoft is no longer OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider

Microsoft was once the exclusive provider of data center infrastructure for OpenAI to train and run its AI models. No longer. Coinciding with the announcement of Stargate, OpenAI’s massive new AI infrastructure deal with SoftBank, Oracle, and others, Microsoft says it has signed a new agreement with OpenAI that gives it “right of first refusal”

Microsoft is no longer OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider Read More »

FTC says partnerships like Microsoft-OpenAI raise antitrust concerns

The Federal Trade Commission said in a staff report issued Friday that there are potential competitive issues in partnerships between big tech companies and generative AI developers — specifically, Microsoft’s backing of OpenAI and Amazon and Alphabet/Google’s partnerships with Anthropic. “The FTC’s report sheds light on how partnerships by big tech firms can create lock-in,

FTC says partnerships like Microsoft-OpenAI raise antitrust concerns Read More »

Microsoft’s newest Copilot plan for business is pay-as-you-go

Microsoft is launching a pay-as-you-go plan for corporate customers that bundles together several, but not all, of the company’s existing AI-powered productivity features for Microsoft 365. The new plan, Copilot Chat — not to be confused with Microsoft’s Copilot Business Chat or GitHub Copilot Chat — is underpinned by OpenAI’s GPT-4o AI model and lets

Microsoft’s newest Copilot plan for business is pay-as-you-go Read More »