Microsoft and AMD are working together to create AI-specific chips

In April, there were reports that Microsoft was developing its own AI-dedicated processor, codenamed Athena. Now, there is a follow-up to this news: Microsoft is financially supporting AMD’s entry into the AI chip market, with AMD taking responsibility for the development of AI chips.

It comes as no surprise that Microsoft is developing AI chips, given the current AI boom and the crucial role chips play. NVIDIA currently dominates the AI chip sector, controlling the infrastructure of the AI field with their A100 and H100 accelerator cards.

Reports suggest that Microsoft is collaborating with AMD to create AI-dedicated chips, with Microsoft providing funding to assist AMD in their research and development.

Google, Microsoft’s competitor, has already launched its own AI chips. However, Google’s AI chips are not sold externally; they are utilized in-house and made available for lease on Google Cloud to other customers.

The collaboration between Microsoft and AMD is expected to alleviate Microsoft’s and OpenAI’s reliance on NVIDIA solutions. As AI technology advances, the demand for accelerator cards will only grow, and long-term dependence on NVIDIA is certainly not ideal.

Therefore, Microsoft has chosen to collaborate with AMD to create its own AI chips, which can not only reduce the cost of using NVIDIA solutions but also potentially provide computing power to other customers through Microsoft Azure, similar to Google.

Of course, there are some differences between Microsoft’s and Google’s AI chips. Google’s AI chips are based on ARM architecture, meaning they purchase ARM technology licenses for their own development. The chips resulting from the Microsoft-AMD partnership are likely to use AMD’s RNDA series architecture. The specific performance of these chips remains to be seen.