Microsoft is investing $1 billion in OpenAI to create brain-like machines

The AI lab gets to throw Microsoft's supercomputing and cloud computing muscle at its bid to build artificial general intelligence (AGI). The news: Microsoft says OpenAI will help it jointly develop and train new AI technologies for its Azure cloud computing service. It will also work with it to develop new supercomputing hardware to try to achieve AGI--machines with the capacity to learn tasks the way human beings do. That's a holy grail of AI that still remains (and may always remain) out of reach. OpenAI's founders, which include Elon Musk and other tech leaders, reckon AGI could help solve longstanding challenges in areas that range from climate change to health care.