On March 19, local time, Microsoft, which has become the world's most valuable listed company by riding on the wave of artificial intelligence (AI), announced a major organizational structure adjustment - the formation of MicrosoftAI to unify the management of consumer AI products and research work. The person in charge of this new department is Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind and InflectionAI. His joining undoubtedly adds a force that cannot be underestimated to Microsoft's AI empire.
According to Microsoft's announcement, Suleiman's position is executive vice president and CEO of Microsoft AI, and he will join the Microsoft Senior Management Team (SLT) and report directly to Microsoft CEO Nadella. Next, Copilot, Bing, Edge, and the generative AI team will all report to Suleiman.
Unlike technology geeks such as Jen-Hsun Huang and Musk, Suleiman adhered to the belief of "making a social impact" in the early stages of his career and actively participated in social welfare undertakings.
Suleiman was born in 1984, the son of a Syrian-born taxi driver and a British nurse. He grew up in London and studied philosophy and theology at Sheffield College, Oxford University. At the age of 19, Suleiman voluntarily dropped out of school and began to devote himself to solving real-world problems.
In 2010, Suleiman co-founded the AI company DeepMind with his university classmate Demis Hassabis and others, hoping to have a positive impact on the world, and thus began his journey in the field of AI.
In 2014, DeepMind was acquired by Google with a transaction value of approximately £400 million, and has since developed into a leading AI research institution. Suleiman was responsible for integrating the company's technology into multiple Google products and participating in research collaborations with multiple medical institutions in the UK to promote the application of AI in the healthcare field.
However, it was reported that in 2019, Suleiman was temporarily suspended and even investigated by the company due to his involvement in some controversial projects. In addition, he was accused of bullying employees, which had a certain impact on his reputation.
In January 2022, Suleiman left Google, but he did not give up the exploration of his original intention of "producing social impact", but continued to devote himself to a new entrepreneurial journey. In March of the same year, Suleiman co-founded InflectionAI with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and former DeepMind senior researcher Karen Simonyan.
According to Crunchbase data, at the end of June 2023, InflectionAI completed a new round of financing of up to US$1.3 billion, with leading investors including Microsoft, Nvidia and three billionaires (Reed Hoffman, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt), becoming a Silicon Valley AI unicorn company.
According to people familiar with the matter, Microsoft has agreed to pay $650 million to InflectionAI, mainly to license its artificial intelligence software. Suleiman himself was also appreciated by Microsoft and was invited to take charge of Microsoft's AI team.
“Throughout my life, I have been focused on maximizing social impact through everything I do,” Suleiman told the media on more than one occasion.
It is worth noting that when Suleiman joined Microsoft this time, he also took away most of the employees of InflectionAI. At the same time, Karén Simonyan, co-founder and chief scientist of InflectionAI, will also join Microsoft as chief scientist of the Microsoft AI division.