Microsoft's Chief, Kevin Scott, shared that the company has found accessing Nvidia's chips for running A.I. workloads easier

October 02, 2023:On Wednesday, Microsoft’s Chief, Kevin Scott, shared that the company has found it easier to access Nvidia’s chips for running artificial intelligence workloads in recent months.

At the Code Conference in Dana Point, California, Scott noted that the market for Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) has started opening up a bit. The demand for GPUs surged when Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched the ChatGPT chatbot last year, causing a shortage in GPU capacity.

Scott acknowledged that while the situation is still tight, it is improving week by week. Like other tech giants, Microsoft has been incorporating generative AI into its products and offering AI capabilities to clients. The reliance on Nvidia’s GPUs for training and deploying AI models contributed to the supply shortage.

Nvidia, which dominates the AI chip market, has experienced significant revenue growth, with its gross margin increasing substantially. The company’s stock price has also seen remarkable gains in 2023.

Scott mentioned that managing the GPU budget across Microsoft was challenging but has become somewhat easier with the increased GPU supply. He emphasized the importance of these chips in the context of generative AI technologies, which have been gaining widespread attention.

According to the company’s finance chief, Colette Kress, Nvidia expects to continue increasing its supply in the coming quarters. Meanwhile, Microsoft is moving to sell access to its Microsoft 365 Copilot to large organizations with subscriptions to its productivity software.

Regarding reports about Microsoft developing a custom AI chip, Scott did not confirm their accuracy but did highlight the company’s ongoing work in the field of in-house silicon development.