Microsoft Offers AMD Alternative To Its Cloud Customers

Microsoft plans to offer its cloud computing customers a platform of AMD artificial intelligence (AI) chips that will compete with components made by Nvidia, with details to be given at its Build developer conference, Max A. Cherney reported for Reuters.

Microsoft's clusters of Advanced Micro Devices' flagship MI300X AI chips will be sold through its Azure cloud computing service. I Photo: Microsoft

It will also launch a preview of new Cobalt 100 custom processors at the conference. 

Microsoft's clusters of Advanced Micro Devices' flagship MI300X AI chips will be sold through its Azure cloud computing service. They will give its customers an alternative to Nvidia's (H100 family of powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) which dominate the data center chip market for AI but can be hard to obtain due to high demand.

To build AI models or run applications, companies typically must string together - or cluster - multiple GPUs because the data and computation will not fit on a single processor.

AMD, which expects $4 billion in AI chip revenue this year, has said the chips are powerful enough to train and run large AI models. As well as Nvidia's top-shelf AI chips, Microsoft's cloud computing unit sells access to its own in-house AI chips called Maia.