Call it a spectacular modern-day model of Renaissance patronage. Since 2019 Microsoft has offered greater than $13bn in money and computing capability to OpenAI, a once-penniless startup that’s now on the forefront of generative synthetic intelligence (AI) and, as of its most up-to-date fundraising spherical, value $157bn. In alternate, Microsoft has gained the unique proper to run OpenAI’s fashions on Azure, its cloud-computing business.