Microsoft introduces two custom AI chips to power Azure services: Details

At its Ignite developers conference on November 15, Microsoft introduced a duo of custom AI chips- Azure Maia 100 and Azure Cobalt 100 CPU- to speed up its in-house AI computing tasks.

The Mia 100 chip is designed to run large language models and can be used to train AI models, while Cobalt, a custom Arm-based CPU, is designed to handle general computing workload.

“Microsoft is building the infrastructure to support AI innovation, and we are reimagining every aspect of our data centres to meet the needs of our customers,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud + AI Group