Microsoft aims to enhance its independence and improve performance in the field of artificial intelligence by developing a new network card dedicated to the Maia server chip, according to a report published by The Information.
This step helps enhance the performance of the Maia intelligent program and reduce the company’s dependency on the chip designer Nvidia, leading to an improved experience with Azure cloud services.
The report mentioned that the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, appointed Pradeep Sindhu, a co-founder of the network equipment company Juniper Networks, to lead the network card development efforts.
Microsoft acquired Sindhu’s promising data processing unit company under the name Fungible last year.
This acquisition is expected to bolster efforts in developing the infrastructure for large data center software, and the experience and technology gained from Fungible may play a role in developing the new network card.
The report mentioned that the new network card is similar to Nvidia’s ConnectX-7 card and is offered by the chip development company alongside graphics processing units.
The equipment development may take more than a year, but this equipment can reduce the time needed for OpenAI to train its models using Microsoft servers. It may also contribute to reducing the costs of this process and enhancing Azure capabilities, especially when integrated with Azure Boost power.
Microsoft has invested millions of dollars in the AI conversational chatbot ChatGPT developed by OpenAI.
The software giant integrated OpenAI technologies into a range of its products, positioning itself as a leader in the artificial intelligence software market.
In November, the company introduced Maia, a technology that operates large language models and supports artificial intelligence computing.
This aligns with the software giant’s strategy of incorporating OpenAI technology into many of its products.
Microsoft confirmed that the Sora model will reach Copilot, strengthening its position in the competitive artificial intelligence software market by offering powerful services in the field of AI through the Azure platform.
The development of the network card reflects Microsoft’s ambitions to achieve self-sufficiency in the artificial intelligence hardware sector.
The success of this project could potentially alter the competition between Microsoft and Nvidia, which may impact the artificial intelligence industry as a whole.
