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Microsoft is openly competing with OpenAI, Anthropic more than ever

Published

4 months ago

July 30, 2026

Microsoft is in a unique position as AI overtakes the tech industry. It’s one of the world’s largest cloud providers and software-as-a-service companies, while also holding valuable stakes in the two biggest AI labs, OpenAI and Anthropic.

Those incentives are starting to clash as Microsoft posts blockbuster financial results. The company just reported an extremely profitable quarter with $90 billion in revenue and net income of $35.8 billion. For the fiscal year, which ended June 30, Microsoft reported $331.8 billion in revenue with a net income of $133.7 billion for the year.

And CEO Satya Nadella is not about to let the trajectory of Anthropic and OpenAI — which are expanding into applications and agentic infrastructure that could ultimately let them own customer relationships — derail that kind of cash.

Nadella has been preaching to enterprises to use multiple models and to stop relying on the frontier AI labs for the agentic harness/app layer.

Doing so is dangerous, he’s been saying, because it requires companies to share too many of their internal secrets with model makers of dubious trustworthiness. He knows his customers. Enterprise IT fears both data leaks and being locked into a vendor.

Now he has openly told Wall Street analysts during the company’s quarterly conference call Wednesday that this is an opportunity for Microsoft to sell customers its own homegrown models, alongside agents, AI security and more, while promising lower costs.

In other words, he’s pitching Microsoft as an alternative to many of the upscale services that OpenAI and Anthropic are developing for their own growth.

When UBS analyst Karl Keirstead specifically asked Nadella to weigh in on the open vs. closed-sourced debate roiling the AI industry, and how Microsoft will benefit from it, Nadella came out swinging.

“The goal is to have the firm be in control of their own destiny,” the CEO said of enterprises. “We are very, very clear about the architectural sort of design of the platform, which is you got to keep your harness separate from the model … that means any model at any given time is swappable.”

Microsoft, of course, sells a menu of harnesses (aka AI agents), too, under the Copilot name, including its coding agent GitHub Copilot. Coding agents are where much of the AI dollars are being spent today.

And he used the high-profile incident from last week as proof of his warnings.

“If you look even at the Hugging Face incident, the biggest thing that we should take away from that is you can’t sort of depend on any one model,” Nadella said. “You will maybe need multiple models to even remediate some challenges that get caused by one model. Like that’s the way to think about it, right? Which is you can’t be subject to a refusal of one model.”

The incident involved an unreleased model from OpenAI breaking out of its sandbox and successfully mounting a full-scale hack on Hugging Face, all in pursuit of besting a benchmark. Trying to understand what happened, Hugging Face at first tried to use a private frontier model (which it hasn’t named) that refused to help it. So it turned to the Chinese open-source model Z.ai GLM 5.2 to analyze logs and defend its infrastructure. The incident has so shocked the industry that even Sam Altman is now saying that maybe AI development should slow down a bit.

Nadella also made clear that Microsoft is happily selling its own homegrown models, the MAI family, on its own homegrown AI chips, Maya, and pitching them as cheaper alternatives.

“Every customer wants the right model for each task based on quality, latency, cost, and compliance. We offer the broadest model catalog in the cloud with over 11,000 models, including the leads from OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, xAI, as well as our own MAI family,” he said.

He added: “We’re also accelerating our own model development. We announced more than a dozen new models across image, voice, transcription, coding, security, including our first reasoning model, MAI thinking one, all with cost-efficient inference at the core for the enterprise use cases. We are co-designing these models with our silicon, and we are seeing 40% better performance per watt when running MAI models on Maya 200.”

As for Mythos? Nadella pointed to Microsoft’s new Mythos competitor announced earlier this week, MAI Cyber One Flash. It “achieves better performance than the much larger Mythos model, but at half the cost when combined with our multi-agent security harness,” he said.

Sure, the Microsoft CEO says that enterprises should use the frontier models that OpenAI and Anthropic offer in their mix. But his bigger message is: don’t trust them enough to rely on them.

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Related Topics:Anthropic competing Microsoft OpenAI openly

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RHYE EMPOWER PLATEAU STUDENTS WITH LAPTOPS AS SEYI TINUBU VISITS JOS

Published

2 hours ago

November 14, 2026

PlateauReports

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The Renewed Hope Youth Engagement (RHYE), Plateau State Chapter, on Friday, November 13, 2026, held an educational empowerment programme in Jos, Plateau State, with the distribution of free laptops to deserving students across tertiary institutions in the state.

The initiative, held at Tamarald Event Centre, Jos, was organised in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the vision of Renewed Hope Youth Movement . It is aimed at promoting digital inclusion, strengthening educational opportunities and equipping young Nigerians with the technological resources needed to excel in today’s increasingly digital society.

The event featured the presence of the Grand Patron of the Renewed Hope Youth Engagement initiative, Barr. Seyi Tinubu, who was accompanied by the Honourable Minister of Youth Development, Comrade Ayodele Olawande Wisdom.

Other notable dignitaries included the Plateau State Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development, Hon. Prince Miaphen; the Plateau State Coordinator of the City Boy Movement, Prince David Daser; the State Coordinator of Renewed Hope Youth Engagement, Mr. Manji Wilson; alongside other government officials, youth leaders, political stakeholders and students.

500 LAPTOPS TARGETED, 50 STUDENTS BENEFIT IN FIRST PHASE

A major highlight of the programme was the announcement of plans to distribute 500 laptops to deserving tertiary institution students across Plateau State.

Under the first phase of the initiative, 50 students drawn from various institutions received brand-new laptops to support their academic activities and digital learning.

Among the institutions represented were the University of Jos (UNIJOS), Plateau State University (PLASU), Plateau State Polytechnic (PLAPOLY), College of Health Technology, Zawan, College of Health Technology, Pankshin, and other institutions.

According to the organisers, the beneficiaries were selected based on academic merit, particularly their Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA), through a process facilitated by their respective institutions.

The laptops are expected to enhance students’ access to digital learning resources, academic research, assignments, online educational platforms and the acquisition of essential technological skills.

SEYI TINUBU VISITS GOVERNOR MUTFWANG, BARKIN LADI MEDICAL OUTREACH

Beyond the educational empowerment programme, Barr. Seyi Tinubu’s visit to Plateau State also featured other engagements.

Prior to the event in Jos, he visited a free medical outreach organised by the City Boy Movement in Barkin Ladi, where residents benefited from healthcare services.

He also paid a courtesy visit to the Executive Governor of Plateau State, His Excellency, Barr. Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang, at the Government House, Jos.

The organisers expressed appreciation to the Plateau State Government and the TIME IS NOW administration for their support and cooperation towards the successful hosting of the programme.

JOS ENTERTAINMENT STARS ADD COLOUR TO THE EVENT

The programme also featured entertainment and musical performances, making the occasion a celebration of youth, education and talent.

Popular Nigerian rapper Ice Prince Zamani, alongside Jos-based entertainers including Classic and Seemo Da Black Czar, thrilled guests and participants with live performances.

The entertainment segment added excitement to the gathering, bringing together education, youth engagement and the creative industry on one platform.

AN INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE OF YOUNG PEOPLE

Speaking on the significance of the initiative, the organisers emphasised that the laptop distribution goes beyond the provision of electronic devices, describing it as an investment in the future of young Nigerians.

For the beneficiaries, the laptops represent valuable tools that will improve their learning experiences, expand access to educational opportunities, encourage digital innovation and prepare them for a technology-driven world.

The event which was well coordinated by Renewed Hope Youth Engagement further highlights the importance of youth-focused initiatives in promoting education, innovation, digital inclusion and sustainable development.

With a target of reaching 500 students, the initiative is expected to extend its impact to more deserving students across Plateau State as subsequent phases of the programme unfold.

The November 13 engagement marks another major youth-focused activity in Plateau State, bringing together government, youth organisations, educational institutions and the creative community in support of the development and empowerment of young people.

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2027: Peter Obi can't run typical Nigerian political organisation – Sam Amadi

Published

2 hours ago

November 14, 2026

PlateauReports

A political analyst, Sam Amadi, has said presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Peter Obi, cannot effectively run a typical Nigerian political organisation because of his minimalist political approach and reluctance to distribute money.

Amadi said Obi's style of politics was fundamentally different from Nigeria's prevailing political culture, where politicians expect financial rewards and other benefits from their political associations.

He argued that some politicians who left Obi's camp were partly driven by what they expected from him but did not get.

Speaking on Arise Television's Prime Time programme on Friday, Amadi said Nigeria's political environment was unstable, with politicians frequently moving between political platforms in pursuit of personal interests.

According to him, some politicians who left Obi's camp had approached him to explain their grievances.

Amadi said their complaints reflected a fundamental disagreement between Obi's political philosophy and the expectations of politicians operating within Nigeria's political system.

The former Director-General of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, maintained that Obi understood his limitations in managing the country's conventional political structure.

He also described Obi as a minimalist who prefers a less elaborate approach to politics, arguing that the former Anambra State governor would rather pursue a straightforward path to political success than engage in the extensive political mobilisation associated with conventional Nigerian politics.

Amadi said: "Peter Obi represents a different kind of politician. Everything about him is often also exaggerated.

"Atiku ran for election with him as vice. The first thing he did after the election was to jump.

"First, Nigeria has a political market that's unstable. Yes. Most of these guys who left, they've come to me, and I talk to them, and they bring issues of grievance. And I say to these guys, look, I've served as Senate president. I've served Jonathan. I disagree with these people, but it's part of it.

"There's a political career. These guys want to move on. Secondly, they also want to have some things Peter cannot offer. That's a deep dissonance between Peter and Nigerian politics. People forget that. Yes, he doesn't give money.

"So Peter is not capable; Peter cannot run a typical Nigerian political organization. He knows that.

"Again, Peter is a minimalist, but it's business. He likes to, if he can, just sneak through this. He doesn't have to open the whole place."

2027: Peter Obi can’t run typical Nigerian political organisation – Sam Amadi