Meta Platforms’ access to Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) models has reportedly been restricted due to limits on computing capacity.
Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, placed a limit on Meta’s access after the social media company, which owns Facebook, sought more computing capacity than Google could provide, according to a story in the Financial Times (FT) newspaper.
Although other Google clients had also been affected, the impact on Meta was greater because of its exceptionally high demand for Google’s models, the FT wrote.
Meta had encouraged employees to use AI resources more efficiently as the shortfall disrupted and delayed some of its internal AI projects.
“The decision by Google to cap a large customer’s access to its models offers a rare glimpse into the infrastructure pressures and bottlenecks building across the AI industry,” the FT wrote.
“Despite spending tens of billions of dollars on chips, data centres and power, even the largest tech companies are struggling to secure enough computing power to support surging demand for advanced models and AI services.”
Google and Meta declined to comment, according to media reports, including from Reuters, which noted it could not independently verify the claims.
Google has been trying to expand capacity to meet customer demand, recently signing a US$920 million per month deal to lease additional computing capacity from Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Demand for AI computing has surged as businesses adopt chatbots and other AI tools, putting pressure on cloud providers to supply enough computing power.
Alphabet has acknowledged the challenges with Chief Executive Sundar Pichai recently saying that although Google Cloud quarterly revenue had passed $20 billion, it was "compute-constrained in the near term".
"Our Cloud revenue would have been higher if we were able to meet the demand," Pichai told investors.
The reported limits also reveal the extent to which Meta has relied on rival AI models even as it invests aggressively in developing its own technology.
