Microsoft on Wednesday debuted a new artificial intelligence chip to run its Azure cloud infrastructure and lessen its reliance on AI chip leader Nvidia. The software giant also detailed its latest AI software tools and services. But Microsoft stock wavered on Wednesday.
Microsoft's new chip, called Azure Maia AI Accelerator, is designed to run generative AI and other AI workloads, including large language model training and inference. The tech giant plans to roll out Maia to its data centers early next year. It will power the company's Microsoft Copilot and Azure OpenAI services. The Microsoft AI chip will run alongside processors from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.
Microsoft also announced a new general-purpose data center computer processor called Azure Cobalt. The new central processing unit, or CPU, is based on Arm designs.
"Microsoft is building the infrastructure to support AI innovation, and we are reimagining every aspect of our data centers to meet the needs of our customers," Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and AI Group, said in a blog post. "At the scale we operate, it's important for us to optimize and integrate every layer of the infrastructure stack to maximize performance, diversify our supply chain and give customers infrastructure choice."
Microsoft announced the new chips at the company's Ignite conference in Seattle.
CEO Proclaims 'Age Of Copilots'
On the stock market today, Microsoft stock alternated between modest gains and losses. MSFT stock ended the session Wednesday up a fraction to 369.67.
Meanwhile, Nvidia stock fell 1.6% to 488.88. AMD stock retreated 1.6% to 118.
In a keynote speech at Ignite, Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella discussed some of the 100 announcements the company is making at the show.
"We're entering this exciting new phase of AI where we're not just talking about this new technology that's interesting," Nadella said. Today, AI is helping people solve "real-world issues," he said.
Microsoft is focused on providing AI assistants called "copilots" to its software offerings. The company made its Office Copilot services available to enterprise users on Nov. 1.
"We're clearly entering the age of copilots," Nadella said.
Microsoft presented data to show how its Copilot features have benefited users by increasing productivity, speeding task completion and improving the quality of their work.
At Ignite, Microsoft announced Copilot Studio, a low-code software tool for users to create customized AI experiences in Microsoft 365.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company also launched Microsoft Fabric, an AI-powered platform that can pool together "data lakes" across cloud services. Microsoft Fabric promises to reshape how teams work with data by bringing workers together on a single platform.
Nadella called Microsoft Fabric "the biggest launch of a data product from Microsoft since the launch of SQL Server."
Microsoft Stock Is On 5 IBD Lists
Microsoft stock is on five IBD lists: IBD 50, Leaderboard, Big Cap 20, Long-Term Leaders and Tech Leaders.
Also, Microsoft is one of the Magnificent Seven stocks that have fueled the stock market rally this year.
Follow Patrick Seitz on X, formerly Twitter, at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor stocks.
