Microsoft's custom Maia 200 chip takes on AI inference
Microsoft just introduced Maia 200, an in-house inference accelerator built on TSMC’s 3nm process. The chip delivers 30% better performance per dollar than Microsoft’s current fleet and boasts three times the FP4 performance of Amazon’s Trainium 3. It is already deployed in Iowa to power workloads like GPT-5.2 and Copilot, signaling hyperscalers’ aggressive push to cut reliance on commercial AI silicon.