Microsoft is developing a new, proprietary AI language model substantial enough to contend with those from Alphabet’s Google and OpenAI, as reported on May 6.

Internally dubbed MAI-1, the new model is under the supervision of Mustafa Suleyman, the Google DeepMind co-founder and ex-CEO of AI startup Inflection, according to the report, which cited two Microsoft employees familiar with the project.

The specific purpose of the model remains undecided and will hinge on its performance. Microsoft might unveil the new model at its Build developer conference later this month, the report noted.

When approached by Reuters, Microsoft declined to comment.

The report further stated that MAI-1 would be significantly bigger than the earlier, smaller open-source models Microsoft had trained, implying higher costs.

The previous month, Microsoft introduced a smaller artificial intelligence model named Phi-3-mini as it aimed to draw a broader clientele with more affordable solutions.

The corporation has allocated billions of dollars to OpenAI and has incorporated the ChatGPT developer’s technology into its array of productivity tools, achieving an early lead in the generative AI contest.

The report additionally cited that Microsoft reserved significant clusters of servers outfitted with Nvidia’s graphics processing units and vast amounts of data to refine the model.

MAI-1 will feature approximately 500 billion parameters, whereas OpenAI’s GPT-4 reportedly has one trillion parameters and Phi-3 mini contains 3.8 billion parameters.

In March, Microsoft appointed Suleyman as the leader of its newly established consumer AI division and recruited several Inflection employees.

The new model does not derive from Inflection, though it could utilize training data from the startup, the report further noted.