"Microsoft to Host GPT-4.5, GPT-5: AI Race Heats Up"

Microsoft is bolstering its infrastructure to support the latest iterations of OpenAI's large language models, GPT-4.5 and GPT-5. According to sources close to the company, Microsoft is preparing to host GPT-4.5 as early as next week, with GPT-5 expected to follow in late May.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently hinted at the upcoming release of GPT-4.5, although he did not provide an exact date. The new model is expected to be a mid-generation update, but OpenAI has reportedly been training it using synthetic data to overcome data scarcity. This approach has been reported by The Information and is said to be effective in training and fine-tuning AI models, as per IBM.

GPT-5 is expected to be a more powerful system that integrates OpenAI's latest reasoning model, o3. On January 31, OpenAI released a smaller version of o3, called o3-mini. Microsoft currently hosts OpenAI's models on its Azure platform, but it is important to note that the service does not interact with any tools operated by OpenAI, including ChatGPT.

Microsoft and OpenAI have expanded their partnership, with OpenAI making a new, large Azure commitment to support all OpenAI products and training. This collaboration comes as part of President Donald Trump's $500 billion AI venture, Stargate.

The AI race is heating up, with OpenAI's ChatGPT setting records as the world's fastest-growing consumer software platform. By February 2025, it had amassed roughly 400 million weekly active users, marking a 33% jump in less than three months. This remarkable growth has allowed OpenAI to seek funding at a $340 billion valuation, according to CNBC.

However, competition is intensifying with the recent launch of DeepSeek, an open-source AI model with Chinese origins that was developed at a tiny fraction of ChatGPT's cost. The launch of DeepSeek has been dubbed "AI's Sputnik moment" by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, signaling a realization that the United States may need to play catch up with rapid technological developments made elsewhere in the world.

Markets reacted to the news with collective awe, as tech stocks, Bitcoin (BTC), and the broader cryptocurrency market plunged in the wake of DeepSeek's