Microsoft will now make its personal chips to energy Azure, Copilot, and ChatGPT, CEO Satya Nadella introduced on the Microsoft Ignite conference Wednesday. The Maia 100 can be utilized to coach AI fashions and can begin rolling out into Azure knowledge facilities early subsequent 12 months, lowering the corporate’s reliance on Nvidia GPUs.
“Azure’s end-to-end AI structure, now optimized all the way down to the silicon with Maia, paves the best way for coaching extra succesful fashions and making these fashions cheaper for our prospects,” stated CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman.
The brand new AI chips are Microsoft’s response to a dwindling provide of Nvidia H100 GPUs, the superior chips used to coach ChatGPT, that Silicon Valley can’t get sufficient of. Microsoft is also constructing the Cobalt 100, which would be the most superior arm CPU in the marketplace, to run Azure. Cobalt 100s will energy the most important AI supercomputers on this planet, and that requires fairly a little bit of superior {hardware}, so Microsoft would slightly not be beholden to Nvidia any longer.
Microsoft spends a fortune on Nvidia GPUs, they usually’d wish to make them at house as a result of it’s cheaper. It’s estimated Azure wants 30,000 GPUs to energy ChatGPT, they usually value roughly $25,000 a chip. Microsoft spent $10 billion this previous summer season to fulfill the AI computing demand however stated it was making an attempt to chop prices in October earnings.
The massive query on everybody’s thoughts is, can Microsoft’s chips really evaluate to Nvidia’s GPUs? Nvidia’s chips aren’t simply extremely coveted as a result of they give the impression of being cool (although, they do), however slightly as a result of they’re extremely troublesome to construct, and Nvidia has a long time of expertise on everybody else.
Microsoft additionally revealed a slew of different updates at Microsoft Ignite. Azure will host Nvidia’s new generative AI mannequin builder for enterprises, increasing its partnership with Nvidia as a result of they don’t wish to utterly destroy that relationship.
Microsoft Groups additionally launched a generative AI background filter that turns your lackluster condominium right into a fantastically curated penthouse on video calls. The function makes your condominium background look nicer, and you may toggle settings to make it “fancy,” “clear up,” and even “celebration.”
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