Anthropic, Microsoft in talks about Maia AI chip deal
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei looks on after his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron during the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19, 2026.
Ludovic Marin | Afp | Getty Images
Microsoft CNBC confirmed Thursday that it is in talks to supply custom AI chips to Anthropic.
The deal represents a win for Microsoft, which has been lagging behind cloud rivals Amazon And Google When it comes to providing purpose-built AI silicon to customers. Microsoft announced its second-generation Maia AI chip in January but has yet to make it available via the Azure cloud. The company said that the Maia 200 processor will run OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 model.
Anthropic has not yet signed an agreement with Microsoft for the use of Maia, said a person familiar with the agreement who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters. Information He provided an update on the discussions early on Thursday.
Microsoft’s shares were little changed.
In November, Microsoft announced that it would invest $5 billion in Anthropic, while Anthropic committed to spend $30 billion on Azure. Anthropic also relies on cloud services from Amazon and Google.
Anthropic is “experiencing computing challenges,” company co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei said at an event earlier this month.
The Claude assistant and Claude Code tool for AI-powered programming have become more popular this year, making Anthropic’s computing capacity needs even more serious.
On Wednesday, SpaceX announced it will pay $1.25 billion a month for Anthropic’s computing power through May 2029.
Historically, Anthropic relied heavily on graphics processing units. Nvidia to train and run generative AI models. In April, Anthropic said it would use Amazon Web Services’ custom Trainium chips in a 10-year deal worth more than $100 billion. Anthropic announced in October that it plans to use Google’s tensor processing unit chips.
Anthropic declined to comment. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Microsoft’s Maia 200 “offers more than 30% improved tokens per dollar compared to the latest silicon in our fleet,” CEO Satya Nadella said on the company’s April earnings call.
The chips are currently running at Microsoft data centers in Arizona and Iowa, he said.
WRISTWATCH: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: We’re scaling so fast with Anthropic, we have big plans for them
Correction: In April, Anthropic said it would use Amazon Web Services’ custom Trainium chips in a 10-year deal worth more than $100 billion. In an earlier version, the name of the chips was misspelled.
