Microsoft Announces Azure Maia AI Accelerator Chip and Expands Partnerships with Nvidia and AMD

According to Cointelegraph, Microsoft has announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence (AI) chip, the Microsoft Azure Maia AI Accelerator, in a blog post on November 15. The chip is designed for AI tasks and generative AI and was introduced alongside the Microsoft Azure Cobalt CPU, which is intended for computing workloads on Microsoft Cloud. The company referred to the two chips as the 'last puzzle piece' for Microsoft infrastructure systems. The chips are expected to arrive in early 2024, initially in Microsoft's data centers, where they will help power its Copilot or Azure OpenAI Service. Scott Guthrie, the executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud + AI Group, commented on the integration of the chip into the company's data centers, stating that it is crucial for them to optimize and integrate every layer of the infrastructure stack to maximize performance, diversify their supply chain, and provide customers with infrastructure choice. OpenAI, an AI company backed by Microsoft, reportedly provided feedback on the new Maia 100 AI Accelerator and how its workloads run on top of the new infrastructure. Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, said that these new chips would help make their AI models more 'capable' and 'cheaper' for users. In addition to the new Microsoft chips, the company announced that it is expanding partnerships with two of the world's major chip manufacturers, Nvidia and AMD. Microsoft plans to integrate some of the manufacturers' high-performing chips into its operations. This announcement comes as many major companies in the tech and AI industry are increasing semiconductor chip production. In October, Samsung revealed that it is developing AI chips and intellectual property for data centers in collaboration with Canadian startup Tenstorrent. Shortly after, there were reports of OpenAI considering making AI chips in-house. Most recently, on October 22, global tech company IBM unveiled its new AI chip, which it claims offers a 22x speedup and is reported to be more energy-efficient than any current chip available.