Microsoft is joining the ranks of companies pursuing AI superintelligence capabilities to benefit areas such as medicine and clean energy.

Mustafa Suleyman, chief of Microsoft’s AI group, will lead the newly formed MAI Superintelligence Team which will develop so-called superintelligence AI models capable of going beyond artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Superintelligence refers to a theoretical form of AI which would not just match, but vastly exceed human intelligence across every domain of cognitive ability. 

Meta Platforms and OpenAI are also seeking to develop superintelligence systems capable of performing human-level tasks.

“If AGI is often seen as the point at which an AI can match human performance at all tasks, then superintelligence is when it can go far beyond that performance,” Suleyman wrote in a blog.

He explained the MAI Superintelligence Team at Microsoft AI is dedicated to researching and building the world’s best superintelligence, grounded in humanist values.

“We’re working towards Humanist Superintelligence (HSI): incredibly advanced AI capabilities that always work for, in service of, people and humanity more generally,” he stated. “We think of it as systems that are problem-oriented and tend towards the domain specific”.

“Not an unbounded and unlimited entity with high degrees of autonomy, but AI that is carefully calibrated, contextualised, within limits.”

The blog about Microsoft’s MAI Superintelligence Team was published after OpenAI contracted to purchase additional Microsoft Azure services valued at $250 billion and agreed to give the tech giant a 27 per cent stake worth about $135 billion.

In November, OpenAI completed a recapitalisation plan to split the company up by placing its AI laboratory into a for-profit corporation within its non-profit foundation.

Bloomberg reported the renegotiated agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI removed a prior prohibition on the former developing advanced AI tools.

Early last year, Microsoft hired Inflection AI co-founder Suleyman and licenced the intellectual property of his startup.