Anthropic is considering adopting Microsoft AI chips in a major update. artificial intelligence startup
The company is in talks to rent servers powered by Microsoft-designed chips to meet growing demand for its AI services, which would be a big boost to the tech giant’s in-house chip efforts, The Information reported on Thursday.
The information report shows that the creators of the cloud are still exploring the idea and have not yet reached an agreement.
Shares of the Windows maker, which are down about 10% for the year, rose 1% after the news, while Microsoft and Anthropic did not immediately comment on the matter.
Landing Anthropic would be a major win for Microsoft’s effort to emulate the custom chip success of Alphabet and Amazon, which have initially built significant businesses renting processors for internal use to AI startups.
Demand for these custom chips has increased as companies look for alternatives to Nvidia’s expensive and short-supply AI processors. Anthropic has emerged as a major customer for them by striking deals with companies including Amazon and Google.
Microsoft has been deepening its relationship with Anthropic in recent months by integrating its models into products including the Copilot AI assistant, as its long-term partnership with OpenAI loosens and it reduces its reliance on the ChatGPIT maker.
The company in January unveiled the second generation of its in-house AI chip, the “Maia 200,” and software tools that targeted one of Nvidia’s biggest competitive advantages with developers.
The Maia 200 is made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company using 3-nanometer chipmaking technology and uses high-bandwidth memory chips, although it is an older and slower generation than Nvidia’s upcoming “Vera Rubin” chips.
Microsoft has loaded its chip with a significant amount of what is known as SRAM, a type of memory that can provide speed benefits to chatbots and other AI systems when they handle requests from large numbers of users.
