The discussions focus on Microsoft’s Maia AI processors. No agreement has been finalised, according to people familiar with the matter. The Information first reported the talks on Thursday.
A deal would give Microsoft a major customer for its in-house AI chips as it tries to compete with Amazon and Google in the market for custom AI silicon.
Maia chip push
Microsoft introduced its second-generation Maia 200 AI chip in January. The company has not yet made the chip commercially available through its Azure cloud platform.
Microsoft has said the Maia 200 processor will run OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 model.
Chief executive Satya Nadella said during the company’s April earnings call that the Maia 200 “offers over 30% improved tokens per dollar, compared to the latest silicon in our fleet.”
Nadella also said the chips are already operating in Microsoft data centres in Arizona and Iowa.
Microsoft has been developing its own AI chips, including the Maia accelerator and the Cobalt processor, to reduce reliance on Nvidia semiconductors. However, Microsoft entered the custom chip market later than Amazon and Google, and its offerings are still considered less mature and available in smaller quantities than rival products.
Anthropic seeks scale
The talks come as Anthropic faces increasing demand for computing capacity.
Earlier this month, Anthropic co-founder and chief executive Dario Amodei said the company has had “difficulties with compute.”
Anthropic’s Claude chatbot and Claude Code programming tool have gained popularity this year, putting more pressure on the company’s infrastructure.
On Wednesday, SpaceX disclosed that Anthropic will pay $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 for computing power.
Anthropic has historically relied heavily on Nvidia graphics processing units to train and run its AI models. The company has also been expanding its hardware and cloud partnerships.
Cloud partnerships grow
In April, Anthropic said it would use Amazon Web Services’ custom Trainium chips under a 10-year agreement worth more than $100 billion. The company also announced plans in October to use Google’s tensor processing unit chips.
Anthropic continues to rely on cloud services from both Amazon and Google.
The potential Microsoft deal would add another major chip supplier to Anthropic’s growing network of technology partners.
Microsoft and Nvidia also agreed last year to invest a combined $15 billion in Anthropic. Separately, Microsoft said in November that it would invest $5 billion in the startup, while Anthropic committed to spending $30 billion on Azure cloud services.
Microsoft has also made Anthropic’s AI models available to Azure customers. For Microsoft, a deal with Anthropic would be an important commercial test for the Maia platform.
Amazon and Google already provide their own custom AI chips to cloud customers, while Nvidia remains the dominant supplier of AI hardware.
(With input from agencies)
