Microsoft launches $4 billion AI reskilling institute

Microsoft unveiled a new initiative Wednesday that's intended to bring artificial intelligence skills to millions of people around the world.

Microsoft Elevate will spend $4 billion in cash and technology donations to philanthropic, educational, and labor organizations over the next four years, as it seeks to accelerate the proliferation of AI technology.

Microsoft makes the AI tool CoPilot, and is a key partner of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. The company is investing aggressively in the infrastructure needed to power its AI push, pledging to spend $80 billion on data centers this year.

The investments come as Microsoft lays off thousands of employees in in its home state, Washington, and globally.

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“ One of the things that has changed the most dramatically about Microsoft is we've moved as a company — as our industry has moved as an industry — from one that spent almost every dollar it earned on employing people to what is in fact the greatest capital and infrastructure investment in the history of global infrastructure,” Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith said at a launch event in Seattle.

In an interview with KUOW, Smith said that restructuring is “ frankly something that should always be hard, but it is something that needs to be done for a company to be successful for many decades and not just a few years.”

Smith said Microsoft Elevate will employ about 300 people, and partner with organizations around the world on a variety of initiatives aimed at increasing AI literacy. The Microsoft Elevate Academy plans to help 20 million people earn AI skilling credentials to be more competitive in an uncertain job market.

“ I think in many ways it gives us the opportunity to reach everybody," Smith said, "and that includes people who will be using and designing AI in the future, say the future of what computer science education becomes, people who are designing AI systems for businesses, but consumers as well, students and teachers who can use AI to better reach and prepare for helping students."

The initiative also includes the creation of Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute, a think tank of academics that will study the societal impacts of AI.

The effect generative AI will have on education remains a source of much speculation and debate.

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While some educators are embracing the technology, others are struggling to rein in cheating and question whether the technology could undermine the very premise of education as we know it.

Regardless of the ongoing debate, Microsoft has always been at the forefront of bringing technology into the classroom, first with PCs and now AI. The company is betting that the resources it is devoting to Microsoft Elevate will help shape a path forward that allows AI to be more useful than disruptive in education and across the economy.

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“ There are many different skills that we're all going to need to work together to pursue, but I think there's also a North Star that should guide us,” Smith said. “It's a North Star that might sound unusual coming from a tech company, but I think it's a North Star that matters most. We need to use AI to help us think more, not less.”