Microsoft’s AI Access Principles are the most important initiatives in the company’s 49-year history

Microsoft has started the week by introducing the tech world (and the world) to its AI Access Principles, which are deemed by the company the most important initiatives in its 49-year history.

In a lengthy blog post, Brad Smith, vice president at Microsoft, emphasized the importance and relevance of AI in the current economy, outlining the need to create a perfect balance to sustain the development of AI technologies.

Smith managed to mention the importance of having a variety of companies engaging in competition when it comes to AI development, while also having the sustainable and climate-friendly means to do so. A recent report showcased that Microsoft used more than 22 billion liters of water to sustain AI back in 2022, and should the trend continue, it will most likely be responsible for the great waste of water globally.

Then, in a world where political stability is fragile, and threat actors are becoming more and more vicious in their attacks, the Microsoft executive also stressed AI partnerships to overcome these obstacles, and the need to be fully transparent and responsible under the law.

Smith also emphasized constructive, proactive, and committed partnerships (Microsoft also announced its AI partnership with Mistral AI, today) that would result in AI technologies ready to serve the public and private sectors, from governments to regular people.

Like other general-purpose technologies in the past, AI is creating a new sector of the economy. This new AI economy is creating not just new opportunities for existing enterprises, but new companies and entirely new business categories. The principles we’re announcing today commit Microsoft to bigger investments, more business partnerships, and broader programs to promote innovation and competition than any prior initiative in the company’s 49-year history. By publishing these principles, we are committing ourselves to providing the broad technology access needed to empower organizations and individuals around the world to develop and use AI in ways that will serve the public good.

Brad Smith

According to the Microsoft executive, these are the 11 AI Access Principles:

1. As we grow chip capacity, we are expanding Microsoft’s cloud computing AI infrastructure to enable the training and deployment of more foundation models, both proprietary and open source, and large and small
2. We are making AI models and development tools broadly available to software application developers around the world, so every nation can build its own AI economy
3. We are making available public APIs to enable developers to access and use AI models we host on Microsoft Azure
4. We are supporting a common public API to enable network operators to support software developers
5. Developers may choose how to distribute and sell their AI models, tools, and applications for deployment and use on Microsoft Azure, whether via the Azure Marketplace or directly to customers
6. We respect the needs of developers by ensuring we do not use any non-public information or data from the training, building, deployment, or use of developers’ AI models in Microsoft Azure to compete with those models
7. We enable customers using Microsoft Azure to switch to another cloud provider by enabling them to easily export and transfer their data
8. We are supporting the physical and cybersecurity needs of all the AI models and applications that run in our AI data centers
9. We are applying a strong Responsible AI Standard to keep people at the center of AI design decisions and respect enduring values, including fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability
10. We are investing in initiatives to spread AI skilling broadly around the world
11. We are managing our AI data centers in an environmentally sensitive manner and using AI to advance environmental sustainability needs

It’s worth mentioning that Microsoft is currently investing in AI technologies and infrastructures in several European countries, along with building new data centers to support these developments. The Redmond-based tech giant promised to keep the development as sustainable as possible, and it seems the company is taking the issue seriously with these new principles.

What do you think?