"We are multiple years behind the competition in terms of ML scale," emails show Microsoft executives were worried about rival Google's AI development, which motivated them to invest in OpenAI

Emails sent between Microsoft executives in 2019 have been made public as part of an antitrust case. Apparently, Microsoft was worried about Google's AI development being better than its own.

source https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/emails-show-microsoft-was-worried-about-google-ai-development