Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said on Thursday, October 15, that their new model beats OpenAI’s GPT-5.6. He told employees, "We now have a stronger pre-trained base model than the model that currently powers GPT 5.6 Sol." Microsoft used one-quarter of the compute to get these better internal test results.
His comments highlight the importance Microsoft is placing on model development and computing efficiency as competition intensifies among AI companies.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has claimed that the company's in-house artificial intelligence model outperforms the pre-trained base model powering OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol while using just a quarter of the computing resources.
Suleyman made the remarks during a town hall meeting with Microsoft employees on Thursday (October 15), according to a report by Business Insider. He said, according to the news outlet, Microsoft's model had performed better than OpenAI's in internal tests designed to evaluate how effectively AI systems understand and predict patterns in information.
"We now have a stronger pre-trained base model than the model that currently powers GPT 5.6 Sol," Suleyman said, according to Business Insider. "And in fact, we used one-quarter of the compute that OpenAI used to train their model."
The claims come even as Microsoft has substantial investment in OpenAI and the companies' longstanding commercial partnership.
Why is Microsoft comparing its AI model with OpenAI's?
Microsoft's push to develop proprietary AI models reflects its efforts to reduce dependence on OpenAI's technology and gain greater control over its AI products, development costs and computing infrastructure.
According to Business Insider, Suleyman said Microsoft had privately tested its model against OpenAI's offerings, including a model internally nicknamed "Spud", which powers GPT-5.6.
He added that Microsoft's comparisons were based on technical information the company had about OpenAI's models.
"Privately and confidentially, we've also compared it to the OpenAI models," Suleyman told employees, according to the report.
The comparison is significant because Microsoft is both a major investor in OpenAI and a commercial partner that uses its models across its products and cloud services.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and owns a stake in the startup that could be worth more than $100 billion, Business Insider reported. The company also offers OpenAI models to customers through its Azure cloud platform and has used the technology in products such as Copilot.
By highlighting its model's performance against OpenAI's, Suleyman may be signalling Microsoft's ambition to compete more directly in the development of foundational AI technology.
He said the company used one-quarter of the computing resources OpenAI had used to train its model. If the comparison holds under equivalent training conditions, this could indicate a substantial reduction in the resources required to develop Microsoft's AI systems.
Pre-training is the initial phase of AI model development, during which a model learns patterns from large amounts of text, images and other information. The process requires considerable computing power and can account for a significant share of AI development costs.
A more efficient training process could help Microsoft reduce infrastructure expenses and make it easier to scale its in-house AI development.
Suleyman also cited DeepSeek as a point of comparison, saying Microsoft's model used "12 times less computation than was used for DeepSeek, for example, on compute efficiency", according to Business Insider.
He did not specify which DeepSeek model he was referring to during the town hall.
The company currently has a significant commercial relationship with OpenAI, including through Azure, where customers can access OpenAI's models. Microsoft has also incorporated OpenAI technology into Copilot and other offerings.
Developing competitive in-house models could allow Microsoft to diversify its technology portfolio, optimise costs and exercise greater control over its AI roadmap.
At the same time, its financial stake in OpenAI makes the relationship complex.
His latest comments highlight the importance Microsoft is placing on model development and computing efficiency as competition intensifies among AI companies.
Microsoft declined to comment on the claims, while OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday, Business Insider reported.