While major U.S. tech companies are scrambling to distribute their AI chatbots to U.S. government agencies, Microsoft is also providing its AI models to the U.S. government for free.
Microsoft (MS) announced on the 2nd that it has signed an agreement with the U.S. Federal Procurement Service (GSA) to provide its AI model, Copilot, for free for up to a year.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will provide copilot free of charge for one year to millions of users of MS G5, an MS 365 platform with licenses and security exclusively for the government.
Microsoft has also decided to offer discounts on its cloud services and office productivity software.
It also plans to provide $20 million in additional support services for federal agencies to deploy and educate applications.
“Through this agreement with the GSA, especially the free MS365 Copilot, we will help federal agencies leverage AI and digital technologies to improve national services, strengthen security, and achieve more than $3 billion in tax savings in the first year alone,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Earlier, Google decided to provide its AI model Gemini to U.S. federal agencies for $0.47 a year, while OpenAI and Anslogic also agreed to provide ChatGPT and Claude for $1 a year, respectively.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
