26 ms·

OpenAI and Microsoft

162 points by jk4930 10y ago

Analemma_ 10y ago
How much better is Azure at cloud GPU compute? I remember they were first to roll out K80 instances, but Amazon followed suit shortly after, so it seems like it would be a wash. Is the interconnect story on Azure way better or something, or is this just fluff?
argonaut 10y ago
I get that AI is all the rage right now. But this is an information-thin Microsoft press release, if not outright ad, with the OpenAI stamp on it. These things really should not be on the front page.
- csharpminor 10y ago
  Also troubling to see OpenAI partnering with Microsoft, which has a record of developing surveillance systems that could leverage AI in harmful ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dave_sullivan 10y ago
  Naw, what they're talking about with infiniband networking ends up being important for distributed GPU workloads and is pretty cool to see in a cloud offering. Being "impressed by their roadmap" is legitimate; Microsoft is putting a lot of energy behind competing with AWS. I've been hearing good things about Azure, but have been an AWS user since ~2009. I haven't heard they're much better or cheaper than AWS, so I haven't bothered to switch. There's certainly PR value here, I just don't think it should be dismissed outright because of that.
  - spydum 10y ago
    Much of the cheaper comes when you get the large enterprise discounts (versus amazon). Those don't last forever though. Their offering is definitely far more immature, but they are making constant improvements. They tend to be leveraging lot of ML stuff in the security/management space as well, which is pretty interesting (they have a vast trove of threat intel from the millions of MS defender and O365 type deployments).
- MzHN 10y ago
  If it was some other company than OpenAI, I would agree. But just the fact that Microsoft is partnering with OpenAI is noteworthy to many here. OpenAI is a non-profit, and I don't know how lucrative the deal is for Microsoft or how much business OpenAI has, but I don't mind Microsoft getting some good press for the move either.
  - Hydraulix989 10y ago
    Microsoft probably offered them a really sweet deal (read: tons of Azure credits), in exchange for the press/marketing. Amazon is pretty stingy with those kinds of things, so they are very Jeff Bezos when it comes to startup credits and the like. The "open" name is telling, OpenAI's work should be agnostic of platform, and they shouldn't be pitching others' proprietary systems in public like this.
  - argonaut 10y ago
    That's the point. This is only getting attention because it's OpenAI.
- denzil_correa 10y ago
  I think it would have been better had they mentioned some financial costs for OpenAI to use Azure. Since OpenAI is a non-profit foundation, giving them a free or substantially cost reduced access would mean the Microsoft is doing their bit to promote AI research. There are various ways to make something whole.
- hellofunk 10y ago
  What should and should not be on the front page is not the decision of any one person. It is simply a result of widespread voting.
old-gregg 10y ago
I am actually getting more and more impressed with Azure. The rate of maturity of their offering is really impressive, and the number of world-wide regions is insane. Wile we're primarily still AWS users, but we're hosting free global tools (check out https://teleconsole.com https://teleconsole.com) on Azure for low latency.
- raphinou 10y ago
  My experience with azure is subpar : slow, deploys failing for no clear reason, terrible ui. Do you have bettee experience with it?
  - setq 10y ago
    This. I get $150 credit with my MSDN account but it never gets used because paying for AWS is a better deal than dealing with Azure. Azure feels like Microsoft wrote it. Clunky, slow and unreliable.
    - m1sta_ 10y ago
      Throw another delivery centre at it. They'll fix it.
  - divanvisagie 10y ago
    I'm currently working on an azure based project where we have scripted all of our deploys in powershell. Pretty quick that way and that also means you dont have to deal with UI
    - macca321 10y ago
      If you can wrap your head round the concept of a 'Resource Group'...
  - m_fayer 10y ago
    I mostly use Azure for hobby/small/exploratory work, but I'm generally quite happy with it, sticking mostly to their PAAS offerings, and a Linux VM here and there. I never touch their UIs, which are terrible indeed. But the CLI tools do everything and I'm pretty happy with those.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hpvic03 10y ago
Seems like Microsoft is trying to do to Google in AI what Google did to Apple in Mobile, using OpenAI as a vehicle. i.e. if you aren't the leading innovator, the next best thing to do is to make the technology free and widespread.
- kayoone 10y ago
  What exactly did Google do to Apple in Mobile ? You mean marketshare ? I believe Apple is fine with that, they still make the majority of profits in the mobile business.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Isn't Google already doing this to Google with Tensorflow?
AlexCoventry 10y ago
I just taught a class[1] where the idea was that everybody would learn to spin up a GPU-backed AWS instance and learn to train their own tensorflow models. Unfortunately, I was the only person who was able to launch an instance, though almost everyone was able to log into AWS and go through the pre-launch instance configuration. I think maybe having everyone request a g2 instance at roughly the same time triggered some sort of fraud-prevention system. Maybe there's some kind of priming people can do to prepare their accounts before the class, but maybe next time we should try Azure. (The class went mostly OK, though. I just showed people what I intended to help them do themselves.) [1] https://www.meetup.com/Cambridge-Artificial-Intelligence-Meetup/events/235496478/ https://www.meetup.com/Cambridge-Artificial-Intelligence-Mee...
- niels_olson 10y ago
  Martin Wicke had a few hundred of us up and running in AWS-powered lab environments, each with our own GPU, at the NVidia GTC in April. Now, they also had a direct line of communication to somebody at AWS to make sure that many GPUs were available. Maybe a call to let them know what you're up to? I'm sure they want people using the gear.
  - AlexCoventry 10y ago
    I don't think the problem was resource availability. Some of my students attempted to start t2's because we weren't going to be doing particularly heavy calculations in this class, and were rejected.
daxfohl 10y ago
I'd love to see some of their FPGA projects mentioned in the 2nd link on that page.

162 points by jk4930 10y ago

How much better is Azure at cloud GPU compute? I remember they were first to roll out K80 instances, but Amazon followed suit shortly after, so it seems like it would be a wash. Is the interconnect story on Azure way better or something, or is this just fluff?

argonaut 10y ago

I get that AI is all the rage right now. But this is an information-thin Microsoft press release, if not outright ad, with the OpenAI stamp on it. These things really should not be on the front page.

csharpminor 10y ago
Also troubling to see OpenAI partnering with Microsoft, which has a record of developing surveillance systems that could leverage AI in harmful ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dave_sullivan 10y ago
Naw, what they're talking about with infiniband networking ends up being important for distributed GPU workloads and is pretty cool to see in a cloud offering. Being "impressed by their roadmap" is legitimate; Microsoft is putting a lot of energy behind competing with AWS. I've been hearing good things about Azure, but have been an AWS user since ~2009. I haven't heard they're much better or cheaper than AWS, so I haven't bothered to switch. There's certainly PR value here, I just don't think it should be dismissed outright because of that.
- spydum 10y ago
  Much of the cheaper comes when you get the large enterprise discounts (versus amazon). Those don't last forever though. Their offering is definitely far more immature, but they are making constant improvements. They tend to be leveraging lot of ML stuff in the security/management space as well, which is pretty interesting (they have a vast trove of threat intel from the millions of MS defender and O365 type deployments).
MzHN 10y ago
If it was some other company than OpenAI, I would agree. But just the fact that Microsoft is partnering with OpenAI is noteworthy to many here. OpenAI is a non-profit, and I don't know how lucrative the deal is for Microsoft or how much business OpenAI has, but I don't mind Microsoft getting some good press for the move either.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago
  Microsoft probably offered them a really sweet deal (read: tons of Azure credits), in exchange for the press/marketing. Amazon is pretty stingy with those kinds of things, so they are very Jeff Bezos when it comes to startup credits and the like. The "open" name is telling, OpenAI's work should be agnostic of platform, and they shouldn't be pitching others' proprietary systems in public like this.
- argonaut 10y ago
  That's the point. This is only getting attention because it's OpenAI.
denzil_correa 10y ago
I think it would have been better had they mentioned some financial costs for OpenAI to use Azure. Since OpenAI is a non-profit foundation, giving them a free or substantially cost reduced access would mean the Microsoft is doing their bit to promote AI research. There are various ways to make something whole.
hellofunk 10y ago
What should and should not be on the front page is not the decision of any one person. It is simply a result of widespread voting.

old-gregg 10y ago

I am actually getting more and more impressed with Azure. The rate of maturity of their offering is really impressive, and the number of world-wide regions is insane. Wile we're primarily still AWS users, but we're hosting free global tools (check out https://teleconsole.com https://teleconsole.com) on Azure for low latency.

raphinou 10y ago
My experience with azure is subpar : slow, deploys failing for no clear reason, terrible ui. Do you have bettee experience with it?
- setq 10y ago
  This. I get $150 credit with my MSDN account but it never gets used because paying for AWS is a better deal than dealing with Azure. Azure feels like Microsoft wrote it. Clunky, slow and unreliable.
  - m1sta_ 10y ago
    Throw another delivery centre at it. They'll fix it.
- divanvisagie 10y ago
  I'm currently working on an azure based project where we have scripted all of our deploys in powershell. Pretty quick that way and that also means you dont have to deal with UI
  - macca321 10y ago
    If you can wrap your head round the concept of a 'Resource Group'...
- m_fayer 10y ago
  I mostly use Azure for hobby/small/exploratory work, but I'm generally quite happy with it, sticking mostly to their PAAS offerings, and a Linux VM here and there. I never touch their UIs, which are terrible indeed. But the CLI tools do everything and I'm pretty happy with those.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

hpvic03 10y ago

Seems like Microsoft is trying to do to Google in AI what Google did to Apple in Mobile, using OpenAI as a vehicle. i.e. if you aren't the leading innovator, the next best thing to do is to make the technology free and widespread.

kayoone 10y ago
What exactly did Google do to Apple in Mobile ? You mean marketshare ? I believe Apple is fine with that, they still make the majority of profits in the mobile business.
matt4077 10y ago
Isn't Google already doing this to Google with Tensorflow?

AlexCoventry 10y ago

I just taught a class[1] where the idea was that everybody would learn to spin up a GPU-backed AWS instance and learn to train their own tensorflow models. Unfortunately, I was the only person who was able to launch an instance, though almost everyone was able to log into AWS and go through the pre-launch instance configuration. I think maybe having everyone request a g2 instance at roughly the same time triggered some sort of fraud-prevention system. Maybe there's some kind of priming people can do to prepare their accounts before the class, but maybe next time we should try Azure. (The class went mostly OK, though. I just showed people what I intended to help them do themselves.) [1] https://www.meetup.com/Cambridge-Artificial-Intelligence-Meetup/events/235496478/ https://www.meetup.com/Cambridge-Artificial-Intelligence-Mee...

niels_olson 10y ago
Martin Wicke had a few hundred of us up and running in AWS-powered lab environments, each with our own GPU, at the NVidia GTC in April. Now, they also had a direct line of communication to somebody at AWS to make sure that many GPUs were available. Maybe a call to let them know what you're up to? I'm sure they want people using the gear.
- AlexCoventry 10y ago
  I don't think the problem was resource availability. Some of my students attempted to start t2's because we weren't going to be doing particularly heavy calculations in this class, and were rejected.

daxfohl 10y ago

I'd love to see some of their FPGA projects mentioned in the 2nd link on that page.