Microsoft Azure: Microsoft announces two in-house designed semiconductors

Microsoft has recently announced it is working on two in-house designed semiconductors. One is an Arm CPU called the Microsoft Azure Cobalt CPU, designed for general workloads, focusing on performance per watt and a dedicated AI accelerator. The other is the Microsoft Azure Maia AI Accelerator, optimized for artificial intelligence tasks and generative AI.

Scott Guthrie, EVP of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI Group, said, “Microsoft is building the infrastructure to support AI innovation, and we are reimagining every aspect of our data centers to meet the needs of our customers. At the scale we operate, it’s important for us to optimize and integrate every layer of the infrastructure stack to maximize performance, diversify our supply chain, and give customers infrastructure choice.”

Microsoft said it would start rolling out the chips to its data centers worldwide early next year for internal use before making it available for more general use on Microsoft Azure. However, the company added that they are unlikely to be sold individually.