Not long ago, tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) rolled out a chip designed to power its artificial intelligence (AI) aspirations, the Maia 100. Now, Microsoft is coming back with a new version, the Maia 200, and making quite a stir in the process. In fact, Microsoft investors are pretty pleased, sending Microsoft shares up over 1.5% as a result in Monday afternoon’s trading.
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The Maia 200 emerged just two years after the Maia 100, reports note, and will deliver one point the Maia 100 never could: wide commercial availability. The Maia 100 was never even made available for Microsoft cloud customers to rent, reports note, but the Maia 200 will likely be available for customers, noted executive vice president for cloud and AI Scott Guthrie.
Guthrie also went on to declare that the Maia 200 was “…the most efficient inference system Microsoft has ever deployed.” The superintelligence team will be putting the Maia 200 to work, the report noted, and Microsoft’s U.S. Central region of data centers will be the first to get the new chips in. Further locations will follow, reports note. The Maia 200 will offer a 30% improvement in performance, and do it for the same price as the Maia 100.
Developer Direct, Part Deux
The first Developer Direct show Microsoft put on must have been a winner, because reports note that Microsoft is planning a second one for later in the year. The word from Xbox insider Jez Corden says that Microsoft is looking into the event mostly due to the year it is. This is, after all, the 25th anniversary of Xbox, so putting on some special events like this should end up going quite well for Microsoft.
The first Developer Direct event introduced several new titles, all set to come out at various points this year. But there are several other titles that are set to come out this year, including some without release windows, like State of Decay 3 and Clockwork Revolution.
Is Microsoft a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 33 Buys and two Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 7.22% rally in its share price over the past year, the average MSFT price target of $622.14 per share implies 31.23% upside potential.
