Meta Has Quietly Become One of Microsoft’s Largest AI Customers

(Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc. has become one of Microsoft Corp.’s biggest AI customers, underscoring how demand for the emerging technology remains concentrated in the tech industry.

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The social media company is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to access artificial intelligence models through Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Each week, Meta uses trillions of tokens — the unit of consumption for AI computing — via the platform, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter.

Both companies declined to comment.

A major prong of Microsoft’s AI strategy is offering models from a variety of providers through a marketplace called Foundry, which had 100,000 customers as of July. Clients from traditional industries such as manufacturing or transportation are often featured in Microsoft promotional material.

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