Microsoft hires former Meta exec to bolster AI supercomputing team

  • Jason Taylor, a former executive at Meta, will join Microsoft’s AI supercomputing team to help build the company’s next set of systems.
  • Taylor handles artificial intelligence, data and privacy infrastructure, as well as managing the company’s server budget.
  • Microsoft and OpenAI need more powerful hardware to keep up with rapidly evolving AI systems.

Former Meta executive joins Microsoft

Jason Taylor, a former executive at Meta, will join Microsoft’s AI supercomputing team. Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott said in a post that Taylor will serve as the company’s vice president and deputy chief technology officer to help “build the next set of systems and push the frontiers of artificial intelligence.”

Taylor worked at Meta from 2009 to 2022, most recently serving as the company’s vice president of infrastructure. According to his LinkedIn profile, he handles artificial intelligence, data and privacy infrastructure, as well as managing the company’s server budget. From 2015 to 2017, Taylor also served as President of the Open Compute Project Foundation, an organisation dedicated to promoting open source design in data centres.

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More powerful hardware requirements

Microsoft and OpenAI need more powerful hardware to keep up with rapidly evolving AI systems. Last month, a report from The Information revealed that Microsoft and OpenAI want to build a $100 billion supercomputer, called Stargate, to power OpenAI’s models.

In March, Microsoft announced it had hired Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman as CEO of a new consumer AI unit, The division oversees Copilot, Bing and Edge.

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