Microsoft to offer rival AI models from own datacentre; launches AI coding agent

Microsoft on Monday said it would offer new AI models made by Elon Musk’s xAI and European startups Mistral and Black Forest Labs hosted in its own data centres, and unveiled a new artificial intelligence tool designed to complete software coding tasks on its own.

The announcements, made at Microsoft’s annual Build software developer conference in Seattle, Washington, underscored the changing nature of Microsoft’s relationship with ChatGPT creator OpenAI, which Microsoft has backed and which announced a directly competing product last week.

Microsoft…