Google is purchasing a collection of data and related materials from Spirit Airlines through a bankruptcy sale, according to multiple reports. The deal involves “old” Spirit Airlines data that is being sold to support training efforts for Google’s AI models.
Skift and Business Insider report that the purchase includes troves of business data and software code, which Google plans to use to improve its AI models and related products. Business Insider adds that Google’s bid is $10 million and that it wins over a competing bid from Mercor. 9to5Google frames the purchase in the broader context of the ongoing effort by major technology companies to obtain new datasets for AI training.
While all outlets describe the acquisition as part of Spirit Airlines’ winding-down process and aimed at AI use, they vary slightly in emphasis—some focus on the AI training motivation and dataset size, others on the bankruptcy-sale mechanism and the bid details.
