Microsoft plans to scale its own Maia AI chips to gigawatt levels by 2027
Microsoft plans multi-gigawatt Azure Maia deployments from 2027 as its main inference platform.
Microsoft executive Scott Guthrie said Azure Maia chips will be deployed at multi-gigawatt scale from 2027 and become the company’s main inference system. Maia 200 already runs Microsoft Copilot in the United States, Europe, and Australia, with GitHub Copilot and Foundry to follow by year-end; CEO Satya Nadella called the silicon the company’s biggest bet. The chips serve OpenAI, MAI, and open-source models, and Microsoft says Maia 200 pushes up to 1.7 times more tokens per watt than leading GPUs in Teams. Maia 300, shipping in 2027, packs eight HBM4 stacks totaling 288 GB at 18 TB/s and is rated at 950 watts, with a claimed 40 percent more tokens per megawatt and up to seven times the tokens of a Maia 200 rack in a 96-chip system.
- Maia 200 already runs Copilot in the US, Europe, and Australia
- Maia 300 due in 2027 with 288 GB of HBM4
- Claimed 40 percent more tokens per megawatt than leading GPUs
- A 96-chip rack is said to deliver up to seven times Maia 200 tokens
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Oct 12, 2026
Microsoft
Microsoft plans to deploy its Azure Maia AI chips at multi-gigawatt scale starting in 2027. They'll become the company's main inference system across its products, executive Scott Guthrie writes. Maia 200 already runs Microsoft Copilot in the US, Europe, and Australia. GitHub Copilot and Foundry follow by year's end. CEO Satya Nadella calls it "our biggest bet yet on our own silicon." The chip handles OpenAI, MAI, and open-source models, and Microsoft says it pushes up to 1.7 times more tokens per watt than leading GPUs in Teams.
Its successor, Maia 300, ships in 2027 and targets long inputs, fast chats, and agentic tasks. Microsoft claims 40 percent more tokens per megawatt than leading GPU systems. A 96-chip rack should produce up to seven times the tokens of a Maia 200 rack. The technical report covers the details, with more coming in November at Ignite 2026.
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