Microsoft and Meta Collaborate to Bring State-of-the-Art A.I. to Azure Customers

Microsoft is expanding its AI offerings beyond OpenAI by making Meta's new AI language model, Llama 2, available on its Azure cloud computing service. Meta has chosen Microsoft as its "preferred partner" for Llama 2, which is available for free to companies and researchers. While Meta is not focused on monetizing Llama 2, Microsoft will offer commercial licenses for enterprise hosting capabilities. This move is significant for Microsoft as it demonstrates its support for an AI language model not developed by OpenAI, and it allows Meta to reach a wider user base. Llama 2 will also be accessible through Amazon Web Services and Hugging Face.