Microsoft Corp. has created in-house artificial intelligence models it believes can go toe-to-toe with industry leaders including partner OpenAI, according to a person familiar with the situation.

According to The Information report, Microsoft’s AI division, led by Mustafa Suleyman, has completed the training of a family of models, internally referred to as MAI, which perform nearly as well as the leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic on commonly accepted benchmarks.

The UK competition watchdog has ended its investigation into the partnership between Microsoft and the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was looking into whether Microsoft's relationship with what is the world's best known artificial intelligence (AI) firm changed after the turmoil which saw its boss Sam Altman fired and then rehired.

After 14 months, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority concluded the Microsoft-OpenAI deal does not warrant a full investigation under U.K. merger rules.