Meta Platforms has emerged as one of Microsoft’s largest artificial intelligence customers, spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually to access AI models through the technology company’s Azure cloud platform, according to a Bloomberg report citing a person familiar with the matter.
The Facebook and Instagram parent reportedly consumes trillions of tokens each week through Microsoft’s platform. Tokens are units used to measure how AI models process information and are commonly used as the basis for pricing AI model usage. Meta and Microsoft declined to comment on the reported spending arrangement.
Meta’s use of Azure is notable as the company is simultaneously investing heavily in developing its own AI models, infrastructure and computing capabilities. The company is reportedly purchasing access to models across different platforms based on factors including availability and cost, allowing its developers to use external systems alongside Meta’s internally developed technology.
Meta developers have also used OpenAI technology available through Microsoft Foundry to evaluate outputs generated by Meta’s own AI models, according to the report. Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth said in a July podcast appearance that the company rents leading third-party models while continuing to develop its proprietary AI technology.
Microsoft Foundry forms a key part of the company’s enterprise AI strategy by giving customers access to models from multiple providers through its cloud infrastructure. The platform had about 100,000 customers as of July.
However, some of Microsoft’s biggest AI customers currently come from within the technology sector itself. ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, has reportedly been a major spender on Foundry, while Adobe, AI search company Perplexity and customer service AI startup Sierra are also among its significant customers.
The concentration of AI spending among technology companies is becoming an important feature of the sector’s commercial expansion. Microsoft has invested heavily in infrastructure and partnerships as it looks to generate revenue from demand for AI models, computing capacity and software products.
OpenAI remains particularly important to Microsoft's AI business. The ChatGPT maker accounted for about 70% of Microsoft’s overall AI revenue during its most recent fiscal year, according to Bloomberg's reporting.
Meta’s reported spending adds another major technology company to Microsoft’s AI customer base at a time when hyperscalers are competing to provide the computing infrastructure and model access required for increasingly resource-intensive AI development.
For Meta, the arrangement also illustrates how companies building their own AI systems can continue to rely on rival technology providers for additional model access and computing resources as development requirements grow.
Disclaimer: This article may include information derived from interviews, press releases, public statements, research, company communications and other publicly available or third-party sources. Such material may be summarised, paraphrased or contextualised for journalistic and editorial purposes. All rights in third-party content remain with their respective owners.