Anthropic likely in talks to use Microsoft's AI chips

In what would be a ‌major boost for the tech giant's in-house chip efforts, Anthropic is in talks to rent servers powered by Microsoft-designed chips to meet rising demand for its AI services. The Claude creator's talks to rent the chips are still early; however, they may not lead to an agreement.

Demand has grown for custom chips as companies seek alternatives to Nvidia's costly and low-in-supply AI processors. Anthropic has emerged as a key customer for them by striking deals with companies including Amazon and Google.

In November, Microsoft said it would invest $5 billion in Anthropic, while Anthropic committed to spending $30 billion on Azure. Anthropic also relies on cloud services from Amazon and Google.

Historically, Anthropic has leaned heavily on graphics processing units from Nvidia to train and run generative AI models. In April, Anthropic said it would use Amazon Web Services’ custom Trainium chips in a 10-year arrangement worth more than $100 billion. Anthropic announced plans to use Google’s tensor processing unit chips in October.

For Microsoft, a deal like this would represent a win as it still lags behind cloud rivals Amazon and Google in supplying clients with special-purpose AI silicon. Microsoft announced its second-generation Maia AI chip in January, but has yet to make it available through its Azure cloud.

Microsoft’s Maia 200 “offers over 30% improved tokens per dollar, compared to the latest silicon in our fleet,” CEO Satya Nadella said on the company’s earnings call in April.