Can I use OpenAI services on Microsoft Azure using my CloudBank award?

1

You can! As of March 2023, the procedure looks like this:

  • Request CloudBank funds
  • Upon receipt of the CloudBank award, log in to the azure portal through your CloudBank account
  • Get your Azure subscription ID
  • Fill out Azure’s OpenAI application form, using said subscription information
    • Regarding the optional fields asking for an internal Microsoft contact, please first get in touch with CloudBank support for more details regarding what to put here

They’ll then go through a manual approval process which takes a few days but ultimately should enable those services on your CloudBank-funded account.

2

At the moment (spring 2023) there seems to be two versions of access to OpenAI LLMs: Direct to the OpenAI organization or through Azure as Naomi describes. This link compares them.