Recently, CEO Satya Nadella revealed in a recent podcast that Microsoft has gained deep access to the customized AI chip development results of OpenAI, and will use this as a foundation to accelerate its own AI chip projects. This strategy not only highlights Microsoft's pragmatic approach of "innovating by standing on the shoulders of giants," but also marks a key step in its journey to reduce reliance on NVIDIA and build a complete AI infrastructure stack.

"First Implement, Then Exceed": Microsoft's Chip Breakthrough Strategy

Nadella clearly stated that Microsoft is not simply reusing OpenAI's designs, but adopting a two-phase strategy of "first implementation, then expansion":

Phase one: Directly apply OpenAI's achievements in system-on-chip (SoC) architecture, memory bandwidth optimization, and power efficiency design to the initial verification and engineering implementation of Microsoft's self-developed chips;

Phase two: Based on this, conduct in-depth customized innovation by combining the unique needs of Azure cloud services, Copilot ecosystem, and enterprise-level AI workloads.

This approach significantly shortens the R&D cycle while ensuring the technical starting point is at the industry's forefront. Insider sources reveal that Microsoft's internal chip team has already begun integrating core modules from OpenAI in heterogeneous computing scheduling and AI model-hardware collaborative compilation.

Why Bet on Self-Developed Chips Now?

As GPT-5, Sora, and multimodal agents see an exponential increase in computing power demand, customized AI chips have become a "must-have" for tech giants. Although NVIDIA H100 offers strong performance, it is costly and supply-limited. By leveraging OpenAI, Microsoft is making a strategic hedge against supply chain security and a key move to improve the gross margin of its Azure cloud AI services.

The Last Piece of the Full-Stack AI Ecosystem

Once its self-developed chips are launched, Microsoft will achieve a complete loop from large models (OpenAI/GPT series). In the future, when Azure customers call upon Copilot or train industry models, the underlying computing power may be driven by Microsoft's custom chips, resulting in lower latency, higher energy efficiency, and stronger data privacy protection.

Nadella is confident about this: "OpenAI's system-level innovations have opened the door to the next generation of computing. This is not just about chips, but about how we define the infrastructure of the AI era."

AIbase believes that Microsoft's move reveals a new paradigm in the AI race: top players no longer compete alone, but achieve technological breakthroughs through ecological collaboration. While OpenAI focuses on model breakthroughs, Microsoft transforms these achievements into a hardware moat—this "division of labor + sharing" alliance model may reshape the global AI infrastructure landscape. The true winners will ultimately be the full-stack giants capable of deeply integrating algorithms, software, and chips.