Microsoft is hiring former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman<\/a>. Altman was fired from OpenAI<\/a> on Friday, after the board said it \u201cno longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.\u201d After a weekend of negotiations to potentially bring Altman back to OpenAI, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced<\/a> both Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will be joining Microsoft\u2019s new advanced AI research team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe\u2019re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,\u201d says Nadella. \u201cWe look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a post on X<\/a> (formerly Twitter) Altman acknowledged he was joining Microsoft by quoting Nadella, saying \u201cthe mission continues.\u201d Nadella responded<\/a> by providing some hints at how he sees Altman\u2019s role at Microsoft. \u201cWe\u2019ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I\u2019m looking forward to having you do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Altman\u2019s Microsoft hiring comes just hours after negotiations with OpenAI\u2019s board failed to bring him back as OpenAI CEO. Instead, former Twitch CEO and co-founder Emmett Shear has been named as interim CEO<\/a>, according to a source speaking to The Verge<\/em>. He will take over from Mira Murati, who was named interim OpenAI CEO following Altman\u2019s shock firing on Friday. OpenAI hasn\u2019t confirmed Shear\u2019s appointment, but given Microsoft\u2019s hiring of Altman it can\u2019t be far away from announcing a new leadership structure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Altman had been negotiating to return as OpenAI CEO, but OpenAI\u2019s four-person board refused to step down and let him return, according to multiple sources<\/a> speaking to The Verge<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had reportedly been pitching custom, Nvidia-rivaling AI Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips to investors recently \u2014 according to The New York Times<\/a>. The TPU project was codenamed \u201cTigris,\u201d attracting a number of prominent venture firms and even interest from Microsoft, according to Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Microsoft has now formed a new advanced AI research team that will include Altman and Brockman. It comes just a week after Microsoft announced it has built its own custom AI chip<\/a> that can be used to train large language models and potentially avoid a costly reliance on Nvidia. Microsoft has also built its own Arm-based CPU for cloud workloads. Both custom silicon chips are designed to power its Azure data centers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the time, Altman said OpenAI had been working with Microsoft to refine and test the Maia AI chip with its own models. Microsoft was quick to play down its AI chip\u2019s impact on a close Nvidia partnership, but the Maia GPU is part of a series and the company is already working on a second generation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n