Microsoft at its annual Microsoft Ignite conference announced Maia 100, its first homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) chip. It is a custom-designed chip optimised for artificial intelligence (AI) tasks and generative AI.
The company says that Maia represents a key component in Microsoft’s strategy to develop a vertically integrated approach to its infrastructure, allowing the company to control every layer of the hardware and software stack, from silicon choices to software and servers, in order to optimise performance and efficiency for its cloud and AI workloads.
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The Maia chip is designed to power some of the largest internal AI workloads running on Microsoft Azure. It is part of Microsoft’s broader efforts to enhance its datacenter capabilities, offering customers infrastructure that is designed from top to bottom and can be optimised with both internal and customer workloads in mind.
The Maia 100 is expected to be available in Microsoft data centers early next year. The company is also planning to make the chip available to partners and customers in the future.
“Our goal is to ensure that the ultimate efficiency, performance, and scale is something that we can bring to you from us and our partners,” CEO Satya Nadella said while announcing the product.
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