Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI are expanding the Microsoft Azure AI platform to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

The move will increase OpenAI's capacity for training its large language model.

“We are delighted to be working with Microsoft and Oracle. OCI will extend Azure’s platform and enable OpenAI to continue to scale,” said Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI.

“The race to build the world’s greatest large language model is on, and it is fueling unlimited demand for Oracle’s Gen2 AI infrastructure,” said Larry Ellison, Oracle chairman and CTO. “Leaders like OpenAI are choosing OCI because it is the world’s fastest and most cost-effective AI infrastructure.”

The OCI Supercluster, for training AI models, can scale 64k Nvidia Blackwell GPUs or GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchips connected by ultra-low-latency RDMA cluster networking and a choice of HPC storage.

Other users of the OCI Supercluster include Adept, Modal, MosaicML, NVIDIA, Reka, Suno, Together AI, Twelve Labs, and xAI - with Elon Musk stating he would spend $10bn on Oracle cloud servers for xAI.

In Oracle's earnings call, the company revealed that in Q4 alone it had signed more than 30 AI sales contracts, totaling more than $12.5bn. The company also revealed that it was building a "very large data center" for OpenAI, which would have the newest Nvidia chips and interconnect.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has a longstanding relationship with Microsoft. Microsoft invested in the company in January 2023 in a "multiyear, multibillion-dollar" deal. It reportedly gave the cloud giant a 49 percent stake in the business. This followed investments in both 2019 and 2021.

In January 2024 the US Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into hyperscale investments in AI firms, and a second investigation into Nvidia, OpenAI, and Microsoft over their influence on the AI industry in June 2024.

Microsoft and OpenAI were reportedly exploring building a $100 billion 5GW supercomputer campus for OpenAI's artificial intelligence models in March 2024.