Microsoft unveils first in-house AI and cloud chips in trend towards custom silicon

“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,” Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at the conference. Maia will power Microsoft’s own AI apps first and then be available to partners and customers, he added.

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For a company of Microsoft’s scale, “it’s important to optimise and integrate” every element of its hardware to provide the best performance and avoid supply-chain bottlenecks, Borkar said in an interview. “And really, at the end of the day, to give customers the infrastructure choice.”

Microsoft has engaged in some chip customisation before, including working with AMD to design Xbox processors and developing specialised chips for the HoloLens goggles and Xbox’s Kinect motion controller. But Maia and Cobalt are the biggest and most general-purpose efforts yet – ambitious moves in a tough and expensive industry to crack.

The old joke about Microsoft is that it doesn’t get things right until version 3.0, but in the chip space that’s typically the case for every vendor. Borkar, who spent 27 years at Intel, said she’s confident Microsoft’s first efforts more than meet the mark. “We are going to deploy these next year,” she said.

The company also announced Copilot Studio, software that lets clients customise AI assistant software from Microsoft or build their own AI assistants from scratch. Customers can also design ways for Microsoft’s co-pilot software to show up in their own existing apps.

“Customers were very consistent in their feedback, like, if I just want to get supply chain data in a co-pilot experience don’t make me go build a whole other bot,” said Charles Lamanna, a Microsoft vice-president.

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The company also announced the following:

a new lower price for clients who use both the Microsoft 365 Copilot product for Office software and the sales co-pilot, which normally cost a combined US$70 a month. Now users can get both for US$50 a month, Lamanna said.

• a new AI tools for customer service representatives, part of its Copilot products.

• Copilot for Azure, an AI assistant designed to help IT administrators troubleshoot apps, operating infrastructure and more.

• a Microsoft-run survey that showed wide satisfaction with its new corporate AI tools. For example, 77 per cent of users said once they use it, they don’t want to go back to what they used before.