I wanted to start a series of blog post, maybe later include videos also on Azure OpenAI specifically for .NET Developers. Developers who use C# as their main languge of choice. The reason is I see lots of Python examples out there and felt a market was left out for most of the examples on Github and writing. Don’t get me wrong I do like writing Python for quick parsing, automation to analytics, one just cannot beat the speed of it. In any case I hope you like this series of post, and I am starting with “What is Azure OpenAI?” and we will discover how Azure and OpenAI team up to bring you amazing AI models and services for all kinds of domains and applications.

What is Azure OpenAI?

Azure OpenAI is a cloud-based platform that lets you access some of the coolest and most advanced artificial intelligence models and services on the planet. Azure OpenAI is the outcome of a partnership between Microsoft Azure and OpenAI, a research organization that wants to create and share friendly and helpful artificial intelligence for everyone.

Azure OpenAI lets you tap into the power of OpenAI’s awesome models, such as GPT-4, GPT-3.5, DALL-E, and Codex, for various tasks and domains, such as natural language processing, computer vision, code generation, and more. Azure OpenAI also gives you tools and frameworks for building and deploying your own AI solutions on Azure, such as Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Bot Service.

How do Azure and OpenAI work together?

Azure and OpenAI have been working together since 2016, when Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI to support its vision of creating artificial general intelligence (AGI), a level of AI that can do anything a human can. As part of the partnership, Microsoft became the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI, providing the infrastructure and compute resources needed to train and run its huge and complex models.

In 2020, Microsoft and OpenAI announced the launch of Azure OpenAI, a dedicated platform that gives you access to OpenAI’s models and services on Azure. Azure OpenAI is built on Azure’s global network of data centers, which offer high-performance computing, scalability, security, and reliability. The added benefit of Azure OpenAI is that it connects you with Azure’s existing AI offerings, such as Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Bot Service, to help you create and deploy end-to-end AI solutions and applications on Azure.

What types of models are supported on Azure OpenAI?

Azure OpenAI supports a range of models developed by OpenAI, each with its own capabilities and applications and as of today the list keeps changing. Some of the most impressive models are:

• GPT-4: A set of models that improve on GPT-3.5 with the ability to understand and generate natural language and code.
• GPT-3.5: Models that also understand and generate natural language and code, with GPT-3.5 Turbo optimized for chat.
• Embeddings: Models that convert text into numerical vectors to facilitate text similarity tasks.
• DALL-E (Preview): Models in preview that can generate original images from natural language descriptions.
• Whisper (Preview): Models in preview for transcribing and translating speech to text.
• Text to Speech (Preview): Models in preview that can synthesize text into speech

These models are available through Azure OpenAI’s APIs, which allow you to send requests and receive responses in JSON format. You can also use Azure OpenAI’s Studio inside the Azure Portal, a web-based interface that lets you interact with the models and explore their features and functionalities.

Azure Chat Playground

What are the benefits of using Azure OpenAI?

Using Azure OpenAI has many benefits for you if you want to harness the power of artificial intelligence for your projects and businesses. Some of the benefits are:

• Access to state-of-the-art AI models and services that can do a wide range of tasks and domains.
• Ability to build and deploy custom AI solutions on Azure, using Azure’s tools and frameworks.
• Scalability and flexibility to handle large and complex workloads, thanks to Azure’s cloud infrastructure and compute resources.
• Security and privacy, as Azure OpenAI follows Azure’s best practices and standards for data protection and compliance.
• Cost-effectiveness, as Azure OpenAI offers various pricing plans and options to suit different needs and budgets.

Summary

I know we did not go through real code of C# but I wanted to share the fundamentals of Azure OpenAI and explain about how the powerful platform lets you access some of the most advanced artificial intelligence models and services in the world. Azure OpenAI is the outcome of a partnership between Microsoft Azure and OpenAI, a research organization that wants to create and share friendly and helpful artificial intelligence for everyone. Azure OpenAI lets you tap into the power of OpenAI’s awesome models, such as GPT-4, GPT-3.5, DALL-E, Embeddings, Whispers and Codex (the list keeps changing every day), for various tasks and domains, such as natural language processing, computer vision, code generation, and more. Azure OpenAI also gives you tools and frameworks for building and deploying your own AI solutions on Azure, such as Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Bot Service. Azure OpenAI offers many benefits for you if you want to harness the power of artificial intelligence for your projects and businesses, such as scalability, security, privacy, and cost-effectiveness.

In the next post we will go more details of the OpenAI Models.