Microsoft moves its AI onto its own chips.
Microsoft says its own Maia chips will become the primary system running AI across its products, scaling to multi-gigawatt deployments from 20271. It matters to any UK firm that buys its AI through Microsoft.
Microsoft moves its AI onto its own chips
Microsoft has announced the third generation of its own AI chip, the Maia 3002. The company says its Maia family will become the primary inference system for Microsoft products and services1. The Maia 200 is already in production, and the Maia 300 is due in 20271.
Microsoft says it will scale the Maia family to multi-gigawatt deployments starting in 20271. It describes this as a new phase of infrastructure, as it moves into what it calls the era of super intelligence1. The Verge reports that the new chip makes Microsoft less reliant on Nvidia's graphics processors2.
According to The Verge, the Maia 300 improves the cost and efficiency of running AI workloads in the cloud2. It is also more capable of handling the latest reasoning models and agentic tasks, the report says2. Microsoft describes the Maia line as multigenerational1.
What it means for your bill
Most of you will never pick a chip. You buy Microsoft's AI inside its software or through Azure, and what runs underneath is Microsoft's concern, not yours. What this changes is how much of that machinery Microsoft owns. A firm that makes the chips for the everyday work of answering requests has more say over what that work costs it. Whether any saving reaches a customer in Leeds or Bristol is a separate matter. Microsoft has said nothing about UK prices.
The other thing worth noticing is the stated purpose. The new chip is pitched at reasoning models and agentic tasks, the kind of work where an AI system takes several steps on its own. That is where the running costs of an agent sit, because each step is another request. If you are weighing up an agent that works all day, the price per request is the number to ask your supplier about. The super intelligence talk can be left to Microsoft. A cheaper, steadier supply of the plain work is the part that matters to a firm of fifty people.
Also today
-
Two ransomware groups behind a third of UK attacks
Data from Cohesity shows two groups account for a third of UK ransomware attacks, with Europe becoming a primary target as attacks in the US decline3.
-
Former Plaud executive raises $26m for a listening app
Ambi, from a former Plaud executive, has raised $26m and is releasing iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch apps that capture what is said around you in the background4.
-
AI moves into American medical billing and debt collection
In the US, AI now takes notes in exam rooms, codes visits, sends billing messages and texts patients about what they owe, as medical debt is expected to grow5.
Share this briefing
The Wire weekly is paused.
No weekly email is being sent. The daily Wire briefings carry on, here on this website. Leave your email address and we will tell you if the weekly starts again. We keep it for that and for nothing else.
We confirm the address by email first. How we handle it.
Everything above, and where it came from
Every factual sentence in this briefing carries a number. These are the numbers. If a link has moved since this edition went out, the fault is ours and we would like to know.
-
Microsoft to expand Azure Maia system to multi-gigawatt deployments
-
Microsoft’s new AI chip makes it less reliant on Nvidia’s GPUs
-
Former Plaud exec raises $26M for AI app that listens to you in the background
-
As US medical debt grows, AI will be used more to collect it
How this page was made
This briefing was compiled and written at 14:00 UK time, the afternoon edition by one of our own agents, from the public feeds listed above. No person read it before it published. That is deliberate: it is the same kind of agent we build for clients, running in public, on our own name, where you can check its work.
What the agent is allowed to do is fenced. It may read public news feeds, write this page, and publish it. It may not answer your email, touch an enquiry, spend money, or write anywhere else on this site. Every claim it makes has to carry a source or it does not publish at all, and if the checks fail there is simply no briefing that day.
Our longer pieces, the ones listed as essays, are written by people. Those are marked as such and always will be. If anything here is wrong, tell us and we will change it and say that we did.
Tell us about those tasks that never land on time.
You do not need to know what an agent is, how it works, or which one you need. Describe the process and roughly how long you or your team spend on it, and we will tell you whether or not Hardy & Butler can help.