Building the next generation of multimodal AI experiences with fal in Microsoft Foundry

Microsoft and fal partner to expand video generation in Microsoft Foundry, helping developers bring creative ideas into enterprise applications.Video workloads do not all start with the same input or aim for the same result. A creative team might explore several interpretations of a written brief. A retailer might turn an approved product image into a short motion concept. An application developer might combine image generation and video generation into a workflow that takes an idea from description to frame to scene. Each scenario brings different requirements for visual quality, motion, creative control, turnaround time, and cost. All of this means that a multi-model solution is necessary to realize a full vision.

Today, Microsoft and fal are helping developers find the right tools for their workloads. We are excited to announce that Kling, LTX, and MiniMax video models are rolling out to in public preview in Microsoft Foundry through our new partnership with fal. Available as a first-party Azure service, these text-to-video and image-to-video options give creators and developers more ways to utilize video generation with the experiences they want to build.

The partnership expands the choices available in Microsoft Foundry while bringing video into the broader platform developers use to build AI applications. The goal is to let developers pick the right model for each step of an experience, then connect those steps into a working application.

“fal has seen incredible adoption this year alone with generative media across all industries from advertising to marketing to gaming. Partnering with Microsoft allows both of us to truly enable the wide creative ecosystem and ensure that all AI solutions that lean on generative media, becomes a multi-model one.” – Burkay Gur, Cofounder

Bringing fal’s generative media focus to enterprise buildersfal is the full stack for generative media, built for creators and developers, with APIs for over 1500 models across image, video, audio, 3D, and generative worlds. As a truly encapsulating platform, fal provides inference, training, and infrastructure to run generative media workloads in production, while also providing innovative post trained models that pushes the boundaries on speed and quality.

That specialization matters because generative media is both a creative and an engineering workload. A compelling demo is only the start. Production applications also need to handle real traffic, scale with demand, and balance output quality, latency, and cost.

Through this partnership, developers will be able to access a selected set of video models in Microsoft Foundry, served by fal and sourced from the companies that build them. The initial portfolio gives teams a choice of models for different creative requirements instead of relying on one model for every task, with more models planned over time.

A portfolio for different video experiencesThe initial portfolio spans Kling v3 Pro, LTX-2.5 Fast, LTX-2.5 Pro, MiniMax H3 Max, and MiniMax H3 Max Turbo. These models give developers different starting points for generating video from text and animating existing images. A team rapidly exploring creative concepts may prioritize speed and cost, while a team producing fewer, higher-fidelity assets may weigh output quality more heavily. Whether an application starts from text or an existing image, and what it needs in output quality and cost, also shapes the choice.

Kling: From a still image to a directed scene

Kling v3 Pro combines cinematic visuals and fluid motion with native audio generation and custom element support. Its image-to-video capabilities give developers control over how a starting image becomes a moving scene, a fit for applications that prioritize visual direction and motion.

LTX: One model for fast drafts, one for final output

For rapid iteration and previews, LTX-2.5 Fast is the speed-optimized option; for high-fidelity final output, LTX-2.5 Pro is the quality-optimized option. Both support text-to-video and image-to-video generation with synchronized audio.

MiniMax: Another approach to video generation

MiniMax H3 Max and MiniMax H3 Max Turbo are post-trained variants of MiniMax H3 focused on prompt adherence, aesthetics, and inference performance. For developers, they provide additional options to evaluate against an application’s creative brief, quality requirements, and performance needs.

“When building with video models, the details matter: how closely the output follows your prompt, how well it preserves your reference images/videos/audios and how quickly you can try another idea. Kling gives developers control over detailed reference to video generation. LTX offers fast iteration and high-quality output through its Fast and Pro variants. H3 Max brings fal’s post-training and inference optimizations to improve quality and speed. Having these models available through Microsoft Foundry gives developers more flexibility to choose what works best for the application they are building.” – Gökay Aydoğan, Creative Engineer

Built for enterprise video workloadsBringing video generation into an enterprise application requires more than choosing the right model. Teams need a platform where they can evaluate different options, build with the models that fit their requirements, and operate those experiences alongside the rest of their applications.

The initial portfolio of video models is hosted in the US, and Microsoft Foundry is the first provider to offer a US-hosted Kling endpoint. Key considerations for enterprise teams:

Data residency: For organizations with data residency requirements, hosting location is one factor to weigh. Review each model’s documented data processing and storage terms to confirm it meets your requirements.Model evaluation: Teams can assess quality, performance, and cost, then connect video generation with the other models and capabilities their applications need.Production readiness: As they move toward production, they can use the evaluation, optimization, governance, security, observability, and infrastructure capabilities supported for their selected offering.PricingVideo generation pricing varies by model and output resolution, giving teams options to balance creative requirements with their application’s budget. The table below shows pricing in USD per minute of generated video for LTX and MiniMax models, making it easier to compare costs across the available options.

Model name

Deployment type

Format

Resolution

Price per video second (USD)

MiniMax H3 Max

Global Standard

Text to video

Image to video

Reference to video

480p

$0.05

768p

$0.08

1080p

$0.16

MiniMax H3 Max Turbo

Global Standard

Text to video

Image to video

480p

$0.025

768p

$0.04

1080p

$0.08

LTX-2.5 Fast

Global Standard

Text to video

Image to video

720p

$0.09

1080p

$0.13

1440p

$0.19

4K

$0.30

LTX-2.5 Pro

Global Standard

Text to video

Image to video

720p

$0.12

1080p

$0.17

Kling v3 Pro

US Data Zone

Text to video

Image to video

audio off

$0.1232

Kling v3 Pro

US Data Zone

Text to video

Image to video

audio on

$0.1848

Kling v3 Pro

US Data Zone

Text to video

Image to video

audio + voice control

$0.2156

Pricing will be updated and listed on our Azure pricing page within the coming weeks.

Get startedReady to start building? Join us at Ignite for BRK256: Video AI at Scale with fal on Microsoft Foundry. Naomi Moneypenny and Alexander Hughes from Microsoft will be joined by Burkay Gur and Lovis Odin from fal on stage to explore this partnership on Thursday, November 19 at 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM CT. Register today!

Explore Kling v3 Pro, LTX-2.5 Fast, LTX-2.5 Pro, MiniMax H3 Max, and MiniMax H3 Max Turbo in Microsoft Foundry and find the model that fits your video experience.

Explore the models in Microsoft FoundryLearn more about falRead the quick start guide to using fal models with ComfyUI hereIf you are interested in testing out new models, check the Microsoft Foundry Model Releases Repository
The post Building the next generation of multimodal AI experiences with fal in Microsoft Foundry appeared first on Microsoft Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

Amazon MSK Replicator is now available in AWS GovCloud (US-East, US-West) Regions

You can now use Amazon MSK Replicator in the AWS GovCloud (US-East, US-West) Regions to replicate streaming data across Amazon MSK clusters and from external Apache Kafka clusters including on-premises, self-managed on AWS, or other cloud providers to Amazon MSK Provisioned clusters.
MSK Replicator is a feature of Amazon MSK that automates data replication between Kafka clusters, eliminating the need to manage custom replication infrastructure or configure open-source tools. With MSK Replicator, you can easily build regionally resilient streaming applications for increased availability and business continuity. MSK Replicator provides automatic asynchronous replication across Kafka clusters, eliminating the need to write custom code, manage infrastructure, or setup cross-region networking. MSK Replicator automatically scales the underlying resources so that you can replicate data on-demand without having to monitor or scale capacity. MSK Replicator also replicates the necessary Kafka metadata including topic configurations, Access Control Lists (ACLs), and consumer group offsets. If an unexpected event occurs in a region, you can failover to the other AWS Region and seamlessly resume processing.
You can get started with MSK Replicator from the Amazon MSK console or the Amazon CLI. To learn more, visit the MSK Replicator documentation, product page, and pricing page.
Quelle: aws.amazon.com

Amazon Redshift expands SUPER data type to store strings up to 16 million bytes

Amazon Redshift now supports individual strings up to 16 million bytes within SUPER data types. Once you opt in through a database parameter, this enhancement applies when ingesting structured or semi-structured data from JSON, PARQUET, TEXT, and CSV source files, and when transforming data through extract load and transform (ELT) processes. Previously, individual strings within SUPER data types were limited to 65,535 bytes.
Storing large individual strings in the SUPER data type helps avoid complex pre-loading transformations needed to store the source data in Amazon Redshift. You can now directly ingest large individual strings greater than 65,535 bytes without extra processing (for example, lengthy documents like terms and conditions and contracts), making them queryable using SQL. Once the data is in Amazon Redshift, you can use the flexibility of PartiQL language to explore and navigate through the data or use string functions to transform the data. Functions such as JSON_PARSE, CONCAT, and LISTAGG can now take input strings and return output strings up to 16 million bytes in length.
This enhancement is available in all AWS Regions, including the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, where Amazon Redshift is available. See the AWS Region Table for more details. To learn more, please visit our documentation or blog.  
Quelle: aws.amazon.com