I think a big part of it is just because they have a big AI lab. I don't know the genesis of that, but it has for years been a big contributor, see pytorch, models like SEER, as well as being one of the dominant publishers at big conferences.
Maybe now their leadership wants to push for practicality so they don't end up like Google (also a research powerhouse but failing to convert to popular advances) so they are publicly pushing strong LLMs.
Maybe now their leadership wants to push for practicality so they don't end up like Google (also a research powerhouse but failing to convert to popular advances) so they are publicly pushing strong LLMs.