THE ERA of artificial intelligence featured an unlikely early leader. Until ChatGPT came along in November 2022, Microsoft was better known for business software that was ubiquitous, worthy and dull. Suddenly, owing to an exclusive cloud partnership with the chatbot’s creator, OpenAI, the 47-year-old technology titan became the hottest thing in big tech. Since then it has created over $2trn in shareholder value. That is ho-hum by the standards of Nvidia—which has furnished the AI revolution with chips and been furnished in turn with a market capitalisation of $5trn—but astonishing by any other measure.
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