Microsoft announced a $750 million 3-year Azure Cloud agreement with AI startup Perplexity AI, increasing the startup's access to a range of frontier models. 

Microsoft Azure signs agreement with Perplexity AI. This agreement allows Perplexity to deploy AI models through Microsoft Foundry, including models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and AI. The 3-year period provides Perplexity with dedicated Azure infrastructure and model integration tools. 

Structure and Model Access of the Agreement Perplexity will run workloads using foundries that combine multiple vendor models, allowing customers the flexibility to choose the best model for each task. 

Microsoft reported the highlights that more than 1,500 Foundry customers have already used OpenAI and Anthropic models, and the number of users spending more than $100,000,000 per quarter on Foundry increased by nearly 80% in the quarter ended in December. 

Perplexity's existing cloud relationships: Despite the new Azure partnership, Perplexity remains dependent on Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider. A spokesperson for the startup confirmed that AWS remains the preferred infrastructure partner and that additional AWS collaborations are planned. 

Impact on Azure AI Services 

This agreement reinforces Microsoft's strategy to position Azure as a hub for AI applications that rely on diverse model providers. By providing access to OpenAI, Anthropic, and AI models, Azure aims to attract developers who are looking for a multi-vendor environment.