Under the deal, the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant would receive 75 per cent of the San Francisco startup’s profits until its capital is paid back, then take a 49 per cent stake in the firm, sources told Semafor. Both companies declined to comment to the publication. (Semafor)

Talking point: New funding would deepen existing ties between the firms; Microsoft has already invested US$1-billion in OpenAI, added its Dall-E image generator to the search engine Bing and is reportedly working to offer ChatGPT-esque answers in Bing. The deal would reportedly value OpenAI at US$29-billion. It’s been in talks for a tender offer of existing shares at the same sticker-price. The corporate entity is an offshoot of a non-profit originally launched in December 2015 with $1-billion in donation commitments from the likes of Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel. The collective said the March 2019 shift to an earnings-generating model was designed to raise funds to add both computing and human power, and promised to cap returns for any shareholders.