Microsoft reportedly hires semiconductor engineer away from Apple

Microsoft has reportedly hired veteran computer chip engineer Mike Filippo away from Apple, to work on specialized computer processors for Azure, according to a report from Bloomberg. Filippo worked for five years at Apple, and before that at Intel and Arm. He will apparently work on system on a chip, or SoC hardware for Azure, at a time when a number of other companies, including Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), and Amazon are working on specialized custom chips of their own to power their data centers.

Filippo worked on increasing capabilities of Arm chips used in phones and other devices while at Apple. While the move is being confirmed by Microsoft to Bloomberg, it hasn’t been officially announced.

We’ll have to see what a move to more aggressively create custom chips in house means at Microsoft, and whether the Azure projects will move more widely into creating custom chips for Windows on Arm devices and Surface computers.