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OpenAI has signed a $300 billion cloud deal with Oracle, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the agreement. The five-year contract begins in 2027 and ranks among the largest cloud deals ever made. The agreement reportedly includes 4.5 gigawatts of computing capacity - about the same as the electricity consumption of 4 million U.S. households. In its quarterly report covering the period through August 31, Oracle announced contracts worth $317 billion. The WSJ says the bulk of that figure comes from the OpenAI deal. For OpenAI, the move is meant to address ongoing shortages in computing power that have slowed the development of new AI models. Oracle, meanwhile, will likely need to take on debt to pay for the chips required to deliver the capacity. OpenAI had previously worked exclusively with Microsoft. By expanding to Oracle, the company is also tying the deal to its broader infrastructure plan known as Stargate.

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Microsoft has added a new audio mode to Copilot, powered by its MAI-Voice-1 model. Users can choose from three modes: Emotive Mode for expressive, free-form delivery; Story Mode for storytelling with multiple voices; and Scripted Mode for exact, word-for-word playback. The tool features a wide range of voices and styles, from Shakespearean performances to sports commentary, and is available in Copilot Labs.

Video: Microsoft

Microsoft recently introduced MAI-1 as its first major language model and signed a deal with Anthropic to integrate its models into Office. Both moves signal that Microsoft is aiming for more independence from OpenAI.

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At a weekend hackathon in San Francisco, more than 100 programmers faced off to see if they could outcode AI tools. The "Man vs. Machine" event randomly split 37 teams into "human" and "AI-assisted" groups. Winners took home $12,500 in prize money plus API credits from OpenAI and Anthropic. The hackathon was co-organized by research group METR, which previously found that AI coding tools can slow down experienced developers by 19 percent. In the finals, both sides were evenly matched—three teams without AI and three teams using AI assistance. The winning project: a code review tool with heatmaps, built with AI support. Second place went to a writing tool for authors, developed without any AI.

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