Anthropic is in early talks to use Microsoft $MSFT's custom Maia 200 AI chips for its Claude models, according to CNBC.
No deal has been finalized, according to CNBC, citing a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. The Information first reported the discussions on Thursday.
For Microsoft, closing such an arrangement would signal progress in its effort to compete with Amazon $AMZN and Google $GOOGL, both of which have moved faster to place their custom silicon with AI customers. The Maia 200, unveiled by Microsoft in January as its second-generation AI chip, has so far not been offered to customers through the Azure cloud platform. On the company's April earnings call, Nadella told investors the chip achieves more than 30% better tokens per dollar than other silicon currently in Microsoft's fleet, and noted deployments are already underway at data centers in Arizona and Iowa.
Anthropic has been grappling with a shortage of computing capacity. At a public event earlier this month, co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei openly described what he called "difficulties with compute," CNBC reported. Wider adoption of both the Claude assistant and the Claude Code tool for developers has strained the company's access to computing resources.
