Microsoft Announces the Launch of New Artificial Intelligence Chips
The chips are planned to support Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure, giving it complete control over its cloud platform.
- Microsoft is planning to introduce its first chip optimized for artificial intelligence in addition to an Arm-based chip that will be useful for general computing.
- The chips introduced at the Ignite conference in Seattle will compete with NVIDIA’s highly popular AI GPUs.
One of the major takeaways from Microsoft’s Ignite 2023 was the launch of two custom-built in-house AI chips that could be used in data centers. This includes the Azure Cobalt 100 CPU and the Azure Maia 100 AI Accelerator. While the Cobalt 100 is set to be used in general-purpose computing, the Maia AI Accelerator will be used to train and operate AI models.
These chips are expected to be available to Azure data centers by early 2024 and will support Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot services. Essentially, the chips will allow Microsoft complete control over its Azure infrastructure in controlling all parts of its cloud platform.
The move has come when Amazon has already taken a firm lead in manufacturing its own data center silicon products. AWS has already transitioned into the production of AI chips for LLMs. Furthermore, Google has also developed several Tensor Processing Units (TPU) and Arm chips.
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Both chips will be manufactured in-house. The cobalt CPU will be a 128-core chip built on an Arm Neoverse CSS design. On the other hand, the Maia AI Accelerator has 105 billion transistors and will be produced on a 5nm TSMC process. It will compete with NVIDIA and AMD AI GPU competitors.
Microsoft has collaborated with OpenAI on developing and testing the AI chips and is expected to improve performance and affordability for OpenAI clients as well. The news also gained importance as Microsoft announced updates for AI services, including the Copilot Studio and AI Studio.
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