Microsoft’s next-generation Maia AI chip is delayed by at least six months, slowing the development of the chip’s engineering samples from the first quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026, The Information reported on Friday, citing three people familiar with the effort.
The chip, code-named Braga, will likely underperform Nvidia’s Blackwell chip, which hit the shelves late last year, when it is in production, the report said.
Microsoft had hoped to use the Braga chip in its data centers this year, the report said, and unexpected design changes, staffing shortages and high turnover were taking a toll on its ability to deliver.
Microsoft had no immediate comment on a Reuters request for comment.
Microsoft, like its Big Tech peers, has increasingly invested in custom processors for artificial intelligence tasks and general-purpose computing, which could help it to reduce its reliance on expensive Nvidia chips.
Cloud rivals Amazon and Alphabet’s Google have also raced to create chips in house, tailored for their specific needs to help boost performance and lower costs.
Microsoft had announced the Maia chip in November 2023, but has been slower to ramp it up to scale relative to its peers.
Google, on the other hand, has had success selling its custom AI chip — dubbed Tensor Processing Units — and in April the company announced its seventh-generation AI chip, designed to accelerate the performance of AI applications.
In December Amazon also released a next-generation AI chip Trainium3 which is due in the second half of this year.
