According to a report by Nikkei Asia on July 30th, Mustafa Süleyman, head of Microsoft's AI department in the United States, said that as Chinese AI models become increasingly popular among American users, Microsoft is considering offering some of its internally developed AI models in an open-source format to users.
When asked whether Microsoft could offer an alternative that rivals China’s open-weight models in terms of trustworthiness, price, and performance, Suleiman said in a Japanese media interview: “It’s possible. We are considering this issue.”
Suleiman is responsible for developing the MAI series of AI models independently by Microsoft. To date, all MAI models released are proprietary or “closed” models. Microsoft has previously developed another independent model series called Phi, which includes open-weight versions.
Reports suggest that this move could mark a potential shift in Microsoft’s AI strategy. The American software company is seeking to reduce its dependence on OpenAI and compete with low-cost Chinese developers such as DeepSeek and DarkSide.
Last Friday, Microsoft expressed its support for open-source AI in a letter that received widespread support from the tech industry. This statement, co-signed by 25 important American companies and institutions including Microsoft, NVIDIA, Dell, IBM, Meta, Palantir, and Hugging Face, supports open-source artificial intelligence models and calls on U.S. policymakers to avoid prematurely restricting or banning such models.
Su Limei responded, "We're very pragmatic. Our main job is to provide customers with optimal performance."
Suleiman told Japanese media that AI models will become more and more like products, as they can perform and interact more flexibly and dynamically in complex environments. This allows them to internalize the business logic and workflows that were traditionally embedded in software.
“First-party models can create long-term autonomy for us,” said Suleiman. “We cannot rely on third-party suppliers. This is not sustainable. We are a company worth trillions of dollars.”
Meanwhile, Suleiman stated that Microsoft plans to maintain its multi-model strategy, allowing customers to use models from OpenAI or Anthropic when these models are more suitable for their needs.
When asked about Microsoft's timeline for achieving autonomy, Sulayman said "We have achieved a great deal in many areas."
