Microsoft Plans New In-House AI Chip Debut This Fall

"In talks with TSMC on plans to receive 300,000 chips next year"

Microsoft plans to unveil its new Maia 300 AI chip as early as this fall, The Information reported.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the technology news outlet said on August 10 that Microsoft is preparing to introduce a new in-house AI chip after trailing other cloud companies in custom chip development.

Microsoft first launched its Maia AI chip in November 2023. Since then, it has lagged cloud rivals such as Alphabet and Amazon in developing its own AI chips.

Google began recognizing revenue in the quarter ending in late June from direct sales of its in-house Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs. Amazon is also increasing the use of its own processors, including Trainium chips.

Microsoft is in talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to secure manufacturing capacity that would allow it to receive more than 300,000 chips by 2027. It is also focused on persuading major cloud customers such as Anthropic to adopt the chips.

The company ultimately aims to secure production capacity for more than 1 million Maia 300 chips, the report said. Those plans could be disrupted by component supply constraints and ongoing production talks with TSMC.

Microsoft unveiled its second-generation Maia 200 in January. The chip was built by TSMC using 3-nanometer technology. Microsoft loaded it with a substantial amount of static random-access memory, or SRAM, a type of memory that can give AI systems a speed advantage in handling user requests.

Kim Jung-a, contributing reporter, Hankyung.com, kja@hankyung.com