Meta signs major AI deal to train Llama on Oracle Cloud

1 week ago 5

Oracle Cloud reveals new deal to train Meta’s AI models on its services
Oracle Cloud will look to enhance the training and deployment of Llama LLM family
Partnership comes as revenue growth fails to meet targets

Oracle has signed a deal with Meta that will see the latter use Oracle Cloud to enhance the training and deployment of its Llama LLM family.

"We just signed an agreement with Meta – for them to use Oracle's AI Cloud Infrastructure – and collaborate with Oracle on the development of AI Agents based on Meta's Llama models," CTO Larry Ellison confirmed.

"Oracle Cloud Infrastructure trains several of the world's most important generative AI models because we are faster and less expensive than other clouds...Oracle trained AI models and AI Agents will improve the rate of scientific discovery, economic development and corporate growth throughout the world. The scale of the opportunity is unimaginable."

Meta’s decision to use Oracle Cloud comes as Oracle CEO Safra Catz praised the company’s record-breaking cloud infrastructure growth, driven by continued demand for AI, which requires large amounts of computing power.

Despite announcing a healthy 9% year-over-year increase in quarterly revenue, shares in Oracle are down, marking a lack of investor confidence.

On the whole, Oracle’s second-quarter results were a mixed bag. Quarterly revenue rose 9% year-over-year to $14.06 billion, however analysts had previously anticipated this figure would stand at $14.1 billion. Adjusted earnings per share also fell short of the anticipated $1.48 by one cent.

Making up more than three-quarters (77%) of the company’s entire revenue was its cloud business, which saw revenue rise by 12% to $10.81 billion.

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

Catz boasted: “Record level AI demand drove Oracle Cloud Infrastructure revenue up 52% in Q2, a much higher growth rate than any of our hyperscale cloud infrastructure competitors.” She added that GPU consumption was up 336% in the three-month period.

However, the outlook remains precarious, with the company forecasting revenue growth of 7% to 9% in the current quarter, falling short once again of analysts’ expectations.

TechRadar Pro has asked Oracle and Meta for more details on the deal, but neither company immediately responded to our email.