Microsoft is negotiating to supply Anthropic with Maia AI chips as demand for advanced computing infrastructure surges globally.
Microsoft is in discussions to supply its custom-built artificial intelligence chips to AI startup Anthropic, in a move that could strengthen the tech giant’s position in the increasingly competitive AI infrastructure market.
The discussions, confirmed on Thursday, would mark a significant breakthrough for Microsoft as it seeks to close the gap with rivals Amazon and Google in providing specialised AI silicon to major customers.
Microsoft unveiled its second-generation Maia AI chip in January but has yet to make the processor commercially available through its Azure cloud platform. The company, however, disclosed that the Maia 200 chip would power OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 model.
A source familiar with the matter said Anthropic had not yet finalised an agreement with Microsoft regarding the use of the Maia chips. The discussions were first reported by The Information on Thursday.
The development comes months after Microsoft announced in November that it would invest $5 billion in Anthropic, while the AI company committed to spending $30 billion on Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure. Despite the partnership, Anthropic continues to rely heavily on cloud services from both Amazon and Google.
Anthropic Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Dario Amodei, recently acknowledged the company’s growing strain on computing resources amid surging demand for its AI products.
“We’ve had difficulties with compute,” Amodei said during an event earlier this month.
Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant and its Claude Code programming tool have seen rapid adoption this year, significantly increasing the company’s demand for computing capacity.
In another sign of the scale of its infrastructure needs, SpaceX disclosed on Wednesday that Anthropic will pay $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 for computing power.
Historically, Anthropic has relied extensively on graphics processing units from Nvidia to train and operate its generative AI models.
In April, Anthropic also announced plans to use Amazon Web Services’ custom Trainium chips under a 10-year arrangement valued at more than $100 billion. The company further disclosed in October that it would deploy Google’s tensor processing unit chips as part of its expanding AI infrastructure strategy.
Anthropic declined to comment on the reported talks, while Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Speaking during Microsoft’s earnings call in April, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella highlighted the performance gains of the company’s Maia processors.
“Maia 200 offers over 30% improved tokens per dollar, compared to the latest silicon in our fleet,” Nadella said.
He added that the chips are currently running in Microsoft data centres located in Arizona and Iowa.
