Microsoft Gives Cloud Customers AMD Option for AI Processors Instead of Nvidia

Microsoft will offer AMD AI chips to its cloud customers as an alternative to Nvidia’s popular GPUs. At the upcoming Build conference, more information will be shared.

Microsoft announced on May 16 that it intends to offer its cloud computing customers a platform of AMD  artificial intelligence chips that will compete with Nvidia components, with more details to be revealed at its Build developer conference next week.

At the conference, it will also show off a sneak peek of its new Cobalt 100 custom processors. Microsoft will sell groups of the best MI300X AI chips from Advanced Micro Devices through its Azure cloud computing service. They are going to offer an alternative to Nvidia’s  H100 family of powerful graphics processing units (GPUs), which are the market leader in AI chips for data centers but can be hard to get because they are so popular.

Companies usually need to “cluster” (link together) several GPUs in order to build AI models or run applications. This is because the data and computations will not fit on a single processor.AMD thinks that its AI chips will bring in $4 billion this year. The company says that the chips are powerful enough to train and run big AI models. Along with Nvidia’s best AI chips, Microsoft’s cloud computing division also sells access to Maia, the name of its own AI chips.

Performance and Testing of Cobalt Chips

The Cobalt 100 processors that Microsoft will show off next week are 40% faster than other processors based on Arm Holdings’  technology, the company said. As of now, Snowflake and other people are using them. Microsoft’s business messaging app Power Teams is testing the Cobalt chips, announced in November. They also aim to rival Amazon.com’s Graviton CPUs.

This week, Amazon announced that Pinterest, the social network, and Robinhood Markets, the Fintech company, are now using Graviton chips.