Microsoft launches 7 new AI models, aiming to reduce its reliance on OpenAI.

At Build 2026, Microsoft unveiled seven new AI models, ranging from reasoning and programming to imaging and voice, revealing its independent AI strategy.

Build 2026 marks a new milestone in Microsoft's AI strategy - Photo: PHAN HAI DANG

Over the years, Microsoft has been known as OpenAI's most important strategic partner, and the entity that has incorporated a range of generative AI technologies into its products.

However, at the Build 2026 event held in early June, the American tech giant sent a clearer message than ever before: Microsoft wants to become one of the world's leading AI modeling developers using its own proprietary technology.

MAI-Thinking-1 and Microsoft's independent AI ambitions.

The highlight of the event was Microsoft's introduction of seven new AI models in the MAI family, covering a wide range of fields from reasoning and programming to image processing and speech. This is considered one of the most significant steps in Microsoft's AI strategy since the birth AI boom.

The most notable announcement this time is MAI-Thinking-1, the first inference AI model developed in-house by Microsoft.

According to Microsoft, MAI-Thinking-1 has approximately 35 billion operational parameters and is designed to handle tasks requiring multi-step reasoning, working with long contexts, supporting programming, and solving complex tasks at a lower cost than many current large-scale AI models.

Notably, Microsoft asserts that this model was trained using clean data and does not utilize data extraction methods from third-party AI models. This is seen as a testament to the company's independent AI research capabilities.

According to evaluation results published by Microsoft, MAI-Thinking-1 achieved competitive performance in programming tests and was rated as comparable to many leading AI models in blind evaluation tests.

Closed AI ecosystem

In addition to MAI-Thinking-1, Microsoft also introduced several new models to build a complete AI ecosystem serving both users and businesses.

In the programming field, the company launched MAI-Code-1-Flash, a model specializing in source code generation and software development support. This model is optimized for programming tasks and will be directly integrated into GitHub Copilot as well as Visual Studio Code.

For content creation, Microsoft announced MAI-Image-2.5 along with MAI-Image-2.5-Flash. These are next-generation image generation and editing models, with the Flash version focusing on responsiveness for applications requiring real-time processing.

In the audio field, the company introduced MAI-Voice-2, which features more natural speech synthesis and support for more new languages.

Alongside that is MAI-Transcribe-1.5, a speech-to-text conversion model that Microsoft claims has significantly faster processing speeds than its predecessor.

In addition to the models mentioned above, Microsoft has also developed variants specifically optimized for the Microsoft Foundry platform to meet the needs of businesses in building and deploying AI applications.

Microsoft's "AI Manifesto"

What interests the tech world is not just the number of new models being announced, but also the strategic direction behind them.

While Microsoft was previously primarily seen as a partner providing infrastructure and deployment platforms for OpenAI, Build 2026 shows that the company is gradually acquiring all the important pieces of the AI ​​ecosystem.

Microsoft now has inference models, programming models, image generation models, speech synthesis models, and speech recognition models. These technologies are directly connected to the Azure, Copilot, and Microsoft Foundry ecosystems, forming a closed AI product chain.

This strategy allows Microsoft to be more proactive in developing core technologies while reducing its reliance on external partners in the context of an increasingly competitive global AI race.

The simultaneous launch of seven new AI models shows that Microsoft is investing heavily in foundational technologies to compete directly with major players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

With AI becoming a strategic technology for the global tech industry, Build 2026 may well be remembered as the moment Microsoft officially announces its vision for an independent, comprehensive, and uniquely its own AI ecosystem.

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PHAN HAI DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/microsoft-tung-7-mo-hinh-ai-moi-tham-vong-giam-phu-thuoc-openai-20260603114639318.htm