Google wants Spirit Airlines’ data. Micro1 wants to pay more.

Micro1, a startup founded in 2022, has proposed paying $12.5 million for a large collection of data from bankrupt Spirit Airlines. This bid surpasses Google's previous highest offer of $10 million. Google had outbid Mercor, another AI data provider, which had bid $7.5 million. The sale has sparked controversy, as unions representing flight attendants and privacy advocates have filed legal objections, citing concerns that the data might contain sensitive personal information that needs to be properly redacted or anonymized before transfer to Google.

A court-appointed privacy watchdog stated that the data needs more time to be scrutinized if the bankruptcy court approves Micro1 as the buyer. Micro1 has offered additional privacy assurances and a 25% premium on its bid. The startup, which got its start in recruiting engineers, recently shifted focus to supplying human-generated training data for AI.

Its CEO, Ali Ansari, believes that real-world data and human input are essential for training AI models to perform accurately in real-world scenarios. The Spirit bankruptcy proceedings are still pending, with a hearing scheduled for September 16.