Microsoft recruits former Meta executive to strengthen AI team

Jason Taylor, a former executive at Meta, is set to join Microsoft's AI supercomputing division, according to an announcement by Microsoft's CTO Kevin Scott on LinkedIn. In his new role as corporate vice president and deputy CTO, Taylor will contribute to the development of cutting-edge AI systems.

During his tenure at Meta from 2009 to 2022, Taylor held various roles, culminating in his position as vice president of infrastructure. His responsibilities included overseeing AI, data, and privacy infrastructure, as well as managing server budgets. Additionally, Taylor served as the chair of the Open Compute Project Foundation from 2015 to 2017, advocating for open-source designs in data centers.

Microsoft and OpenAI are gearing up to enhance their hardware capabilities to keep pace with the rapid advancements in AI technology. Recent report from The Information suggested plans for a monumental USD 100 billion supercomputer project dubbed ‘Stargate,’ aimed at empowering OpenAI's models. However, Scott's LinkedIn post seems to refute some of these rumors, indicating that much of the recent speculation is inaccurate.

In a separate move earlier this year, Microsoft appointed Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google DeepMind, as the CEO of a new consumer AI division tasked with overseeing projects like Copilot, Bing, and Edge.