Microsoft's Latest AI Chip Claims Performance Edge Over Amazon and Google (geekwire.com) 18
An anonymous reader quotes a report from GeekWire: Microsoft on Monday announced Maia 200, the second generation of its custom AI chip, claiming it's the most powerful first-party silicon from any major cloud provider. The company says Maia 200 delivers three times the performance of Amazon's latest Trainium chip on certain benchmarks, and exceeds Google's most recent tensor processing unit (TPU) on others. The chip is already running workloads at Microsoft's data center near Des Moines, Iowa. Microsoft says Maia 200 is powering OpenAI's GPT-5.2 models, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and internal projects from its Superintelligence team. A second deployment at a data center near Phoenix is planned next.
It's part of the larger trend among cloud giants to build their own custom silicon for AI rather than rely solely on Nvidia. [...] The company says Maia 200 offers 30% better performance-per-dollar than its current hardware. Maia 200 also builds on the first-generation chip with a more specific focus on inference, the process of running AI models after they've been trained. [...] Microsoft is also opening the door to outside developers. The company announced a software development kit that will let AI startups and researchers optimize their models for Maia 200. Developers and academics can sign up for an early preview starting today.
It's part of the larger trend among cloud giants to build their own custom silicon for AI rather than rely solely on Nvidia. [...] The company says Maia 200 offers 30% better performance-per-dollar than its current hardware. Maia 200 also builds on the first-generation chip with a more specific focus on inference, the process of running AI models after they've been trained. [...] Microsoft is also opening the door to outside developers. The company announced a software development kit that will let AI startups and researchers optimize their models for Maia 200. Developers and academics can sign up for an early preview starting today.
Still, nobody wants MS AI (Score:1)
At least that seems to be the most common reaction.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, it's like Microsoft and all the FAANG companies are playing a game no one cares about but them. Meanwhile, NVidia is happy to sell them booster packs for their decks.
Re:Still, nobody wants MS AI (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
True - it's a game no one care about because it's actually got no tangible benefit to anyone.
They've got this new chip - good for them. Why is Co-Pilot still so shit? Google's got their TPU, and Gemini 3 is actually really good. I have a $60 USB-connected TPU on my CCTV NVR, and it's really awesome, so it's working hard on my behalf. If Microsoft can make the same sort of thing for say $30, then maybe it'll be worth thinking about, but otherwise, I just can't get excited about this at all.
Honestly, this ran
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, pretty much. The only group that so far really seems to want AI and is under a credible impression is makes them more productive, are some CEOs. These people overlook that CEOs are most productive when they do almost nothing.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Made by ... you have one guess (Score:1)
It's part of the larger trend among cloud giants to build their own custom silicon for AI rather than rely solely on Nvidia.
And they are all made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) .
Meanwhile, from chips to ships for no particular reason, China has over 200X the shipbuilding capacity of the US at around 23 million tons. Which coincidentally is about the same as the US in 1942 or 1943.
Microslop claims a lot... (Score:2)
So what you're saying is (Score:2)
So it enshitifies faster than the competition. Got it.
e-Waste? (Score:2)
What happens to them when they are no longer economically viable for Microsoft, Amazon, and Google?
I have made my side hustle for years teaching data center training courses using outdated data center technologies. For example, I'm still running a pretty considerable cluster of E5-2600v1 servers with 2TB of RAM. They cost me a small fortune to buy, but I paid far less than the cost of a s
So, what Microsoft is saying is (Score:2)
Mine is bigger than yours?
Only fools (and there are many in the AI hype machine ecosystem) do not understand that the next gen Amazon, Google, and nVidia chips will end up better than these Microsoft chips. Each generation gets better than the previous generation.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile I am getting more from my laptop from 2018 than people get running Windows 11. You need to look into Wirth's law.
Sleepy sloppy slop (Score:2)
No slop for me please!
Steals User Data Twice as Fast as Competitors! (Score:2)
I don't care how many feathers you glue on to it (Score:1)