Microsoft unveils first in-house AI and cloud chips in trend towards custom silicon

Microsoft has unveiled its own AI chip, the Maia 100, and a cloud-computing processor named Cobalt. These innovations were announced at the Ignite conference and are part of Microsoft's strategy to enhance its technology offerings in the competitive AI computing market. The Maia 100 chip will enable Azure cloud customers to develop and run AI programs more efficiently. Microsoft is currently testing this chip with its Bing and Office AI products, and OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, is also evaluating the processor. Both Maia and Cobalt are expected to be available in Microsoft data centers early next year. nnThe development of in-house chips is a significant move for Microsoft, as it allows the company to optimize performance and reduce reliance on external suppliers. This is especially relevant given the current high demand for Nvidia's AI chips. Microsoft's decision to produce its own processors follows a trend set by other tech giants like Amazon and Google. The company will also offer services using Nvidia's H200 chip and AMD's MI300X processor, which are designed for AI tasks. The shift towards custom silicon could have implications for Intel, which has been slower to develop its own AI chips. nnThe Maia chip is designed to process large amounts of data for tasks such as speech and image recognition. Azure Cobalt, on the other hand, is a central processing unit with 128 computing cores, making it competitive with products from Intel and AMD. Cobalt is based on Arm Holdings designs, known for their efficiency in battery-powered devices. Microsoft has previously customized chips for the Xbox and HoloLens but Maia and Cobalt represent their most ambitious general-purpose chip projects to date. Additionally, Microsoft introduced Copilot Studio, a software that allows clients to create or customize AI assistants, and announced new pricing and AI tools for customer service and IT administration.