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Written by Crystal Ho and Akash Sriram
(Reuters) – Microsoft-backed OpenAI said on Friday it has acquired database search and analysis startup Rockset to provide better infrastructure for its enterprise products.
The companies did not disclose the size of the deal. OpenAI used its shares to buy the company in a stock deal that values Rockset at a few hundred million, making it one of the largest acquisitions by a fast-growing AI lab, according to sources familiar with the matter.
OpenAI declined to comment on the details of the deal. The company was last valued at $86 billion in a tender offer by investors earlier this year.
Rockset, founded by former Meta (NASDAQ:) engineers, builds databases for real-time research and analytics, and has leveraged the use of AI in applications from chatbots and anomaly detection.
Backed by Greylock, Sequoia and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (NYSE:) venture capital arm, Rockset said last year it had raised $105 million in total funding.
Why is it important
Rockset said its team will join OpenAI and the technology will power the retrieval infrastructure for ChatGPT manufacturers’ products.
This means that Rockset’s expertise in real-time data processing and vector searching will enhance OpenAI’s ability to quickly access and analyze massive amounts of information, likely leading to faster and more accurate responses from AI models as it tries to sell enterprises tools for rapid indexing and analysis. Search through their data.
Context
OpenAI is looking to stay ahead of the curve by expanding its offerings, built on the success of its consumer-facing product ChatGPT.
OpenAI demonstrated ChatGPT Enterprise, the enterprise version of its chatbot and its AI services known as APIs, to executives at large organizations.
It’s also integrating new functionality into ChatGPT and developing new AI models to fend off competition from the likes of Google, Alphabet’s Anthropic (NASDAQ:) and others.
Reuters reported last month that OpenAI is developing a search engine product to compete with Google and AI search startup Perplexity.
