Monday, October 9th 2023
Microsoft to Unveil Custom AI Chips to Fight NVIDIA's Monopoly
According to sources close to The Information, Microsoft is supposed to unveil details about its upcoming custom silicon design for accelerating AI workloads. Allegedly, the incoming chip announcement is scheduled for November during Microsoft's annual Ignite conference. Held in Seattle from November 14 to 17, the conference is supposed to show all of the work that the company has been doing in the field of AI. The alleged launch of an AI chip will undoubtedly take center stage in the announcement, as the demand for AI accelerators has been so great that companies can't get their hands on GPUs. The sector is mainly dominated by NVIDIA, with its H100 and A100 GPUs powering most of the AI infrastructure worldwide.
With the launch of a custom AI chip codenamed Athena, Microsoft hopes to match or beat the performance of NVIDIA's offerings and reduce the cost of AI infrastructure. As the price of H100 GPU can get up to 30,000 US Dollars, building a data center filled with H100s can cost hundreds of millions. The cost could be winded down using homemade chips, and Microsoft could be less dependent on NVIDIA to provide the backbone of AI servers needed in the coming years. Nevertheless, we are excited to see what the company has prepared, and we will report on the Microsoft Ignite announcement in November.
With the launch of a custom AI chip codenamed Athena, Microsoft hopes to match or beat the performance of NVIDIA's offerings and reduce the cost of AI infrastructure. As the price of H100 GPU can get up to 30,000 US Dollars, building a data center filled with H100s can cost hundreds of millions. The cost could be winded down using homemade chips, and Microsoft could be less dependent on NVIDIA to provide the backbone of AI servers needed in the coming years. Nevertheless, we are excited to see what the company has prepared, and we will report on the Microsoft Ignite announcement in November.