Microsoft Reveals Next-Gen Maia 300 Custom AI Chip For Widespread Deployment Aditya Raghunath Tue, October 13, 2026 at 8:54 AM EDT 3 min read MSFT +0.62% TSM -1.26% NVDA -0.98% Explore stocks on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Price change for Microsoft stock in last 6 months: 41%
$MSFT Stock Price as of Oct. 12: $541
Microsoft (MSFT:NASDAQ) announced the Maia 300 on Monday, the third generation of the company's custom AI chip.
Microsoft plans to deploy potentially more than a million of them next year, and the product will back its internal AI services.
The chip handles AI work like coding and carrying out business tasks for users. Its predecessor already runs Microsoft's own AI models and also runs OpenAI models delivered on Azure.
Microsoft took a different design path from Nvidia, which uses one large chip surrounded by memory chips.
Maia 300 uses "chiplets," which are smaller specialized chips bonded together. Key computing uses 2-nanometer technology from Taiwan Semiconductor.
Cheaper 3-nanometer technology handles tasks like moving data around.
Microsoft says Maia 300 does about 40% more useful work per megawatt than leading GPU-based systems. It did not say which systems it compared against.
Maia racks hold 96 chips and use about 167 kilowatts. Comparatively, Nvidia's GB300 racks hold 72 GPUs and use 142 kilowatts.
Microsoft also plans "multi-gigawatt deployments" starting next year.
Cloud rivals and AI firms like OpenAI are also building their own chips. Microsoft's goal is to loosen Nvidia's hold on AI computing. For Microsoft stock, the news is about cost and control.
Microsoft's July earnings call shows why that matters. Azure revenue grew 43%, and the company expects about 45% growth next quarter.
Management said demand still exceeds supply. Capital spending is heavy, and Microsoft expects about $175 billion in capex in calendar 2026.
On that call, Microsoft said its earlier chip, Maia 200, delivers 30% better performance per dollar than the latest hardware in its fleet.
Better chips could help it earn more from every dollar spent on data centers. That could help margins, which AI infrastructure costs pressured last quarter.
Fiscal 2026 revenue (ended in June) topped $331 billion, up 18%. Azure passed $100 billion, and Microsoft Cloud rose to $214 billion.
The 40% gain comes from Microsoft's own comparison. Also, the company still buys chips from Nvidia and AMD, so Maia adds to its mix rather than replaces it.
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