STORM - Stanford University

I had a friend reach out to share an AI tool with me that I hadn't heard of before. It's built by Stanford University and called STORM. STORM stands for "Synthesis of Topic Outlines through Retrieval and Multi-Perspective Question Asking." It's an AI research tool designed to generate comprehensive, Wikipedia-like articles by conducting internet-based research and synthesizing information from multiple perspectives.

When I logged into the system, I noticed a banner that read, "We thank Microsoft Azure for cloud credits." This made me curious about the connection between STORM and Microsoft.

I found that STORM leverages Microsoft's Azure services in two key ways:

1. Integration of Bing Search: STORM utilizes Bing Search to gather up-to-date information from the internet, ensuring that the content it generates is based on current and reliable sources. (Source)
2. Use of Azure OpenAI GPT-4o-mini: The tool employs Azure's OpenAI GPT-4o-mini model for its language processing tasks, enabling it to produce well-structured and coherent articles. (Source)

Additionally, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) has partnered with Microsoft to offer researchers access to Azure cloud credits. This collaboration provides resources for projects like STORM, facilitating advanced AI research and development. (Source)

What Are Microsoft Cloud Credits?

If you're like me, you may not have been familiar with Microsoft Cloud Credits. I found that they are funding grants that provide researchers, startups, and organizations with free access to Microsoft Azure’s cloud computing resources. These credits help cover the costs of cloud services, including AI models, storage, computing power, and data analysis tools.

What is Microsoft Azure?

I've heard of Microsoft Azure, but I didn’t really know much about it. Here's what I found: Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that provides a wide range of services, including computing, storage, databases, AI, machine learning, and networking. Businesses, developers, and organizations use Azure to build, deploy, and manage applications and infrastructure in the cloud.

Summary

So there’s a little insight into a new AI tool. It’s honestly hard to keep up with everything being released, but it's been fun trying. Have you come across any interesting AI tools recently?