The new agreement “includes changes to the exclusivity on new capacity, moving to a model where Microsoft has a right of first refusal (ROFR),” Microsoft says. “To further support OpenAI, Microsoft has approved OpenAI’s ability to build additional capacity, primarily for research and training of models.”

The software giant was previously the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI and now retains right of first refusal.

If you've read about the Microsoft-OpenAI relationship over the past few years, you'd know that apart from its financial investments, Microsoft was also the exclusive cloud infra provider to OpenAI. While the former is still there,

The long-standing partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI has evolved in order to “drive the next phase of AI”. Key elements of the 2019 agreement remain in place until 2030, including Microsoft’s right to OpenAI intellectual property for use within its products,

We are thrilled to continue our strategic partnership with OpenAI and to partner on Stargate. Today’s announcement is complementary to what our two companies have been working on together since 2019.

Microsoft has revised its agreement with OpenAI, allowing the AI company to partner with other cloud service providers (CSPs). However, Microsoft retains the Right of First Refusal (ROFR), giving it a priority to match any competing offers before OpenAI commits to other providers.