What partnerships has Microsoft announced related to AI in the past year?

Microsoft has announced several partnerships related to AI in the past year, reflecting its commitment to expanding its AI capabilities and ecosystem. These partnerships are aimed at enhancing Microsoft's AI infrastructure, democratizing AI technologies, and driving innovation across various industries. Here are the key partnerships announced by Microsoft in the past year:

1. **The Coca-Cola Company**: Microsoft and The Coca-Cola Company announced a five-year strategic partnership that includes a $1.1 billion commitment to the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities. This collaboration aims to accelerate the adoption of AI across Coca-Cola's business functions, including the testing of innovative generative AI use cases.
2. **Hugging Face**: Microsoft deepened its generative AI partnership with Hugging Face, enhancing their collaboration on AI infrastructure, open and proprietary foundation models, AI orchestration, and developer tools. This partnership brings together Microsoft's robust cloud infrastructure with Hugging Face's popular Large Language Models (LLMs) to provide developers with advanced tools and models for scalable and responsible generative AI solutions.
3. **Mistral**: Microsoft announced a new multiyear partnership with Mistral, a French AI startup valued at €2 billion ($2.1 billion). This partnership focuses on the development and deployment of next-generation large language models, with Mistral's new AI model, Mistral Large, designed to compete with OpenAI's GPT-4 model.
4. **Other Partners**: Microsoft has also partnered with other companies and organizations to build AI-powered solutions, innovate across industries, and empower customers with AI capabilities. These partnerships are part of Microsoft's broader strategy to democratize AI and enable organizations to achieve greater productivity and innovation through AI technologies.

These partnerships underscore Microsoft's strategic approach to AI, which involves collaborating with leading companies and startups to enhance its AI platform and offer customers a comprehensive suite of AI tools and services.