Microsoft to launch Cobalt 100 chips for Azure clients at Build 2024

Microsoft which announced Cobalt 100 chips last November, will launch it for customers as a public preview at the Build 2024 Conference scheduled for May 21, reports TechCrunch. 

Scott Guthrie, Executive VP of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI wing compared Cobalt 100 with AWS’s Graviton in an analyst briefing ahead of the conference. Let’s not forget that the Graviton chips from AWS have been available to developers for years now.

Guthrie added that Microsoft’s AI chips will offer 40% better performance than other ARM chips available right now. It is worth noting that Adobe, Snowflake, and more currently use these ARM architecture-based 64-bit chips with 128 cores. 

The soon-to-launch Microsoft Cobalt 100 chips can handle general workloads, focusing on performance per watt. During its announcement in 2023, Microsoft said that the chips were used for Azure SQL and Microsoft Teams. 

Other than Cobalt 100, Microsoft plans to reveal AMD’s MI300X accelerators for Azure clients starting next week. Microsoft will sell the GPUs via Azure cloud computing service.

For the uninitiated, the MI300X accelerator is built on CDNA 3 architecture. As compared to the M1250X, the MI300X has a 1.5x memory capacity of 192GB. And, a 1.6x more memory bandwidth of 5.3Tbps.

Tech Crunch also reports that Guthrie said the MI300X is the most cost-effective GPU out there right now for Azure OpenAI.

Are you excited about the launch of Microsoft’s custom Cobalt 100 chips? Share your thoughts in the comments below.