Microsoft plans to ramp up AI chip output, targets 300,000 units in 2027

Microsoft is in talks with TSMC to secure capacity for more than 300,000 next-generation Maia AI chips for delivery in 2027, as cloud giants seek alternatives to Nvidia.

Microsoft Corp. is planning to "significantly" increase production of its next-generation AI chips, the Information reported. The company has been in discussions with supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to secure manufacturing capacity for over 300,000 of the chips for delivery in 2027, the technology news site reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the situation. Microsoft is preparing to unveil its new Maia 300 chip this fall, the Information said. 

  Microsoft's chip push started years after Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google began designing their own chips, and the Maia line is widely seen as less mature than its rivals, which are already widely used to power AI services. Anthropic PBC alone has deals to use 1 million Amazon Trainium chips and Google Tensor Processing Unit accelerators. 

 

  All three cloud-computing giants are aiming for technology that can be plugged into data centers and offer savings and other efficiencies to cloud customers. The high costs and short supply of chips from Nvidia Corp. has fueled a scramble to find alternative sources of computing power. Microsoft started rolling out Maia 200, its second-generation AI accelerator, earlier this year.

  A Microsoft manager declined to comment on specific production plans but said the company ultimately aimed to produce gigawatts' worth of Maia chips, the Information reported.

  Microsoft shares rose about 1.3% at 9:48 a.m. in New York.