Microsoft Plans To Offer AMD Artificial Intelligence Chips For Cloud Computing

Microsoft will launch a preview of the Cobalt 100 custom processor (photo: x @python_ar)

JAKARTA - Microsoft announced on Thursday May 16, that it plans to offer its computing customers an AMD artificial intelligence chip platform that will compete with components made by Nvidia, with details to be provided at a Build developer conference next week.

They will also launch a preview of the new Cobalt 100 custom processor at the conference. The AMD artificial intelligence chip cluster will be sold through the Azure cloud computing service. They will provide their customers with alternatives to Nvidia's H100 graphics processing unit (GPU) family which dominates the data center chip market for artificial intelligence but is difficult to obtain due to high demand.

To build artificial intelligence models or run applications, companies usually have to combine multiple GPUs because data and computing will not fit in one processor.

AMD, which expects artificial intelligence chip revenues of $4 billion this year, said the chip was powerful enough to train and run a large artificial intelligence model.

In addition to Nvidia's top artificial intelligence chip, Microsoft cloud computing unit also sells access to its artificial intelligence chip called Maia.

Separately, Microsoft's Cobalt 100 processor plans to be exhibited next week offering a 40% better performance compared to other technology-based processor Arm Holdings, the company said.

Snowflake and others have started using it. The Cobalt chip, announced in November, is being tested to power Teams, Microsoft's messaging tools for businesses, and is positioned to compete with the internal CPU graviton created by Amazon.com.

Amazon said this week that the Pinterest social network and fintech company Robinhood Markets had started using their graviton chips.