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.”

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

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 ended its exclusive partnership with OpenAI as the sole provider of data center infrastructure. The development comes just as OpenAI announced Stargate, a new $500 billion AI infrastructure deal with SoftBank, Oracle, and others.

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.