Microsoft Unveils Maia 200 AI Accelerator
On Monday, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced the launch of its in-house AI accelerator, the Maia 200, designed specifically for high-performance inference workloads within Azure. The Maia 200 boasts three times the FP4 performance of Amazon’s third-generation Trainium and exceeds the FP8 performance of Alphabet’s seventh-generation TPU, positioning it as Microsoft’s most efficient inference system yet, delivering 30% better performance per dollar than previous hardware.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) continues to dominate the AI chip market, reporting a revenue of $57 billion for Q3 fiscal 2026, a 62% increase year-over-year. Data center revenue accounted for $51.2 billion of this total, rising 66% year-over-year. However, experts suggest that as major cloud providers develop in-house alternatives, pricing pressures on Nvidia’s offerings may increase, impacting its competitive edge and high valuation, currently at 46 times earnings.
