Microsoft rolls out Maia 200 AI chips; launch note also has ‘message’ for Google and Amazon

Microsoft is rolling out its second-generation artificial intelligence chip, Maia 200 AI chip. The all-new AI chip aims to be a potential alternative to leading processors from Nvidia and to offerings from cloud rivals Amazon and Google. The Maia 200 chip comes two years after Microsoft said it had developed its first AI chip, the Maia 100, which was never made available for cloud clients to rent. The chips use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) 3 nanometer process. Four are connected together inside each server. They rely on Ethernet cables, rather than the InfiniBand standard. Nvidia sells InfiniBand switches following its 2020 Mellanox acquisition.

This time it will be different. Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president for cloud and AI, said in a blog post that, for the new chip, there will be “wider customer availability in the future.”