Microsoft has reportedly signed a deal with former Ethereum miner CoreWeave to use its cloud computing infrastructure to power its AI-powered services.
According to June 1 a report From CNBC citing “people familiar with the matter,” Microsoft will likely spend billions of dollars on the deal with CoreWeave that will run over several years.
A CNBC source claimed that the deal was signed earlier this year, as was Microsoft OpenAI’s ChatGPT chat software.
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Microsoft $MSFT It just signed a deal for AI computing power with Nvidia-backed CoreWeave that could be worth billions
CoreWeave Nvidia offers NVDA dollars Graphics cards rented by other companies
Nvidia invests $100M in CoreWeave, which was valued at $2B in April – CNBC
— Evan (@StockMKTNewz) June 1, 2023
Amidst the rapid growth of AI technology over the past 12 months, Microsoft has introduced several AI-powered services. A good example of this is the GPT-4 integration with the Bing and Microsoft Edge web browsers, which the company recently de-queued.
OpenAI also uses Microsoft Azure’s cloud computing infrastructure to handle large computing requirements.
CoreWeave initially started as an Ethereum miner in 2017, using Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to verify transactions on Ethereum during its formative days as a proof-of-work blockchain.
The company began shifting its focus to GPU cloud computing around 2019, after discovering a hole in the market for diverse, scalable, and competitively priced computing options — something claimed Old service providers did not provide.
Notably, reports of the deal with Microsoft come a few days after CoreWeave announce On May 31, it extended its $221 million Series B funding round as of April bringing the total to $421 million.
Series B was led by Magnetar Capital, with participation from long-term strategic partner NVIDIA.
The company stated in April that the capital will be used to expand its cloud infrastructure focused on a broad range of computational workloads such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, visual effects, and rendering, to name a few.
Related: Here’s how OpenAI plans to purge ChatGPT of misinformation
Commenting on the Microsoft deal via Twitter, Bitcoin advocate and General Partner of Castle Island Ventures Nick Carter highlighted the importance of the company’s shakeup in the industry:
“Ppl makes fun of ‘crypto to AI pivots’ but CoreWeave has gone from mining ETH to using its fleet to do computing for AI and now it’s worth $2 billion… one of the fastest growing companies in the world right now.”
ETH is what put them in business. Interestingly, they would not have been in business had the merger taken place on time. Since the merger was so long overdue, they were able to expand while planning the next thing.
– Nick Carter (@nic__carter) June 2, 2023
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