The negotiations are centered on Microsoft’s Maia AI processors. No agreement has been reached as of yet, according to sources familiar with the situation. The Information first reported on these talks on Thursday.
A partnership would provide Microsoft with a significant client for its proprietary AI chips as it endeavors to compete with Amazon and Google in the custom AI silicon market.
Maia chip initiative
In January, Microsoft unveiled its second-generation Maia 200 AI chip, which has not yet been made commercially available through its Azure cloud platform.
The company claims that the Maia 200 processor will support OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 model.
During the April earnings call, CEO Satya Nadella stated that the Maia 200 “delivers over 30% more tokens per dollar, compared to the latest chips in our lineup.”
Nadella further mentioned that these chips are already operational in Microsoft’s data centers located in Arizona and Iowa.
Microsoft has been creating its own AI chips, including the Maia accelerator and the Cobalt processor, to lessen its dependency on Nvidia semiconductors. However, Microsoft entered the custom chip arena later than both Amazon and Google, and its products are still regarded as less developed and available in smaller quantities compared to competing offerings.
Anthropic aims for growth
This dialogue occurs as Anthropic copes with rising demands for computational capacity.
Earlier this month, co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei mentioned that the company has encountered “challenges with compute.”
Anthropic’s Claude chatbot and Claude Code programming tool have surged in popularity this year, creating additional strain on its infrastructure.
On Wednesday, SpaceX revealed that Anthropic is set to pay $1.25 billion per month up until May 2029 for computing resources.
Historically, Anthropic has significantly relied on Nvidia graphics processing units to train and deploy its AI models. The company is also expanding its partnerships in hardware and cloud services.
Expanding cloud partnerships
In April, Anthropic announced it would utilize Amazon Web Services’ custom Trainium chips under a decade-long agreement valued at over $100 billion. Additionally, the company disclosed plans in October to leverage Google’s tensor processing unit chips.
Anthropic continues to depend on cloud services from both Amazon and Google.
The potential agreement with Microsoft would introduce another key chip supplier to Anthropic’s expanding network of technology partners.
Last year, Microsoft and Nvidia jointly agreed to invest $15 billion in Anthropic. Separately, in November, Microsoft announced a $5 billion investment in the startup, while Anthropic committed to spending $30 billion on Azure cloud services.
Microsoft has also made Anthropic’s AI models accessible to Azure customers. For Microsoft, a partnership with Anthropic would represent a significant commercial test for the Maia platform.
Amazon and Google already offer their own custom AI chips to cloud customers, while Nvidia continues to dominate the AI hardware supply.
(With input from agencies)
