Microsoft unveiled its Maia 300 AI chip and plans to scale Maia to multi-gigawatt deployments starting next calendar year, making it the primary inference system for its own products. CEO Satya Nadella says Maia 300 delivers 40% more tokens per watt than leading GPU-based systems. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh, however, said Microsoft is 'nowhere close' to Google's TPUs or NVIDIA, since Google has developed TPUs over several generations and also rents them to outside customers. Microsoft's capital expenditures reached $116 billion in the year ended June 2026, while NVIDIA's gross margin has stayed above 70% for three straight fiscal years, so shifting some spending to Maia could save real money. The article concludes Alphabet currently leads the custom-chip race, with Microsoft still catching up.
Summary written by Upside AI from the original article. Read the source for full details.
Read the original on Yahoo Finance ↗
Keywords
MSFTsemiconductorsartificial intelligenceAI investment
Open a keyword to see other news on the same topic.
Related tickers and likely impact
MSFT
▼ Likely negativeMicrosoft
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Information Technology |
| Industry | Systems Software |
| Market cap | $4.0T |
| Close on 10/16/2026 | 528.95 |
| Change that session | -1.94% |
NVDA
▲ Likely positiveNvidia
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Information Technology |
| Industry | Semiconductors |
| Market cap | $5.2T |
| Close on 10/16/2026 | 214.14 |
| Change that session | -1.42% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
Related news
- AI debt concerns drive default insurance costs to record highs
- AI debt concerns drive default insurance costs to record highs
- BofA Warns AI Investors Could Lose Even If the Technology Works
According to Bank of America strategist Sebastian Raedler, AI investors could still lose money even if the technology performs as expected, mirroring past capital cycles such as railroads and fiber optics. Hyperscaler capex expectations for the next 12 months rose from $330 billion in early 2025 to $1 trillion, about 3% of US GDP. Average token prices have fallen around 50% since the summer, so revenue stalls even as usage rises. After the warning, NVIDIA fell 1.43% to $214.13 and Microsoft fell 1.93% to $529.05. The article argues Microsoft is better positioned than NVIDIA against a slowdown in AI spending, and flags Microsoft's next earnings versus about 45% constant-currency Azure growth guidance as the key test.
- Tenstorrent raises $1.5 billion for AI compute
- Should You Buy This Trump AI Stock Ahead of Earnings?
Microsoft (MSFT) reports quarterly results on October 28 and ranks eighth in Trump's latest stock portfolio, after Trump bought the stock five times in August. Bulls point to Azure growth of 43% last quarter, with management expecting about 45% in the current quarter, and to demand that exceeds available computing capacity. Bears cite rising capital spending that Deutsche Bank says could push free cash flow close to breakeven in fiscal 2027, about two-thirds of spending going to short-lived equipment such as chips, and OpenAI making up about 45% of the commercial backlog in the December quarter. The stock trades at 26.75 times forward earnings, a 27% premium to the sector median of 21.01 but 12% below its own five-year average of 30.47, with a PEG ratio of 1.70 versus a sector median of 1.14. The article concludes that investors pay more than for the average tech stock but less than they usually pay for Microsoft.
- Microsoft vs. Alphabet: Is GOOGL’s Cloud Growth Worth More Than Investors Think?
Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL) trade at forward P/E ratios of 25.13 and 22.83, respectively. Google Cloud revenue jumped 82% to $24.8 billion in the second quarter, with operating income rising from $2.8 billion to $8.8 billion, while Azure and other cloud services grew 43%. Both companies face heavy infrastructure spending: Microsoft spent $35.8 billion on property and equipment, pushing its cloud gross margin down to 65%, while Alphabet spent $44.9 billion, leaving roughly negative $5.85 billion in quarterly free cash flow. The article argues Alphabet's $9.11 EPS is unreliable because about $98 billion came from net other income, so its 30% operating-income growth better reflects underlying performance. Microsoft has a more diversified earnings base and higher consolidated operating margins, but the key question is whether either company can turn AI demand into cash after paying for infrastructure.
Related markets
Latest news
- J.P. Morgan Stays Top of Extel’s All-America Equities Research Table
Extel's 55th annual All-America Research Team survey ranks J.P. Morgan first in the research team table with 47 published positions, followed by BofA Securities with 44 and Morgan Stanley with 43. UBS posted the largest gain in positions, reaching 42 and climbing to fourth place. In the analyst leaders table, Jefferies takes first place with 43 positions, while UBS leads Extel's weighted ranking of research teams ahead of J.P. Morgan and Evercore ISI. The results reflect the views of 4,451 portfolio managers and analysts at 1,608 institutions across 60 sectors, with 129,919 votes counted. The number of participating institutions fell from 1,705 in 2025, but more firms now sit in the highest commission bands, rising to 89 from 82.
- Visa, Mesh partner to enable crypto spending at 175M merchant locations
Visa and crypto payments network Mesh have partnered so users can spend cryptocurrency and stablecoin balances directly from participating digital wallets at merchants on Visa's network, without transferring funds to a bank account or using a separate crypto card. Merchants receive payments through Visa's existing network without changing their checkout systems. The network covers more than 175 million merchant locations in over 200 countries and territories, and participating wallets and launch dates will be announced later. Mesh will handle funding and conversion between crypto, stablecoins and fiat, as well as onboarding and KYC requirements. The partnership follows Mesh's September integration with Bybit Pay and its $75 million raise in January at a $1 billion valuation.
- Mastercard Brings Its Fraud-Fighting Tools to Stablecoin Payments
Mastercard has launched Stablecoin Security, a tool that lets financial institutions screen stablecoin payments for fraud, scams and sanctions exposure and generate a risk score before a payment settles. Delivered through a platform-agnostic API, it combines Mastercard's payment intelligence with blockchain analytics and launches with Borderless.xyz and Keyrails as initial participants. The move addresses a blind spot flagged by a Bank for International Settlements study, which found nearly 60% of 593 million stablecoin transfers in 2025 were complex, multi-step transactions. The product extends Mastercard's broader stablecoin push, including its Global Money Platform with BVNK, and will launch first in North America, with worldwide availability expected in 2027.
- Better Oil Stock: Chevron (CVX) vs. ExxonMobil (XOM)
The article compares integrated oil majors Chevron (CVX) and ExxonMobil (XOM), whose stocks rose 45% and 58% respectively over the past 12 months as oil prices climbed. Chevron earns about 80% of its profit from upstream operations versus about 70% for ExxonMobil, which has a larger downstream and petrochemicals business. With Brent crude at $110 per barrel, well above breakeven prices of $50 for Chevron and $35 for ExxonMobil, the author argues Chevron's upstream focus suits oil spikes, while ExxonMobil's diversification helps when prices fall. Chevron offers a 3.2% forward yield versus 2.3%, and analysts expect its EPS to grow at a 26% CAGR from 2025 to 2028, compared with 20% for ExxonMobil. Both trade at 15 times next year's earnings, and the author prefers Chevron.
- This High-Yielding Dividend Stock Has Soared Past the "Magnificent Seven" in 2026
Target (TGT) shares are up 57% so far in 2026, outpacing the Magnificent Seven tech group, where Tesla is down 18% and Apple leads with a 26% gain as enthusiasm for AI cools. The stock is still down 39% over five years, with its last positive year in 2021, as consumers have pulled back on discretionary spending, but a new CEO and recent earnings progress have renewed investor interest. Growth in the most recent quarter, which ended Aug. 1, was 5.3%, with comparable growth of 3.6%, which the author sees as decent but not spectacular. Target trades at a P/E of 16 versus about 23 for the S&P 500 and 43 for Walmart, and its dividend yields 3% versus roughly 1% for the market, with 55 consecutive years of increases.
- Here's What a $5,000 Investment in AMD Could Be Worth by 2032
AMD shares have risen 147% in 2026 as of writing, well ahead of the 57% gain in the PHLX Semiconductor Sector index, driven by demand for its server CPUs and GPUs in AI data centers and by gains in the PC market. The data center segment made up 58% of Q2 revenue, rising 107% year over year to $6.7 billion. The company cites an AI data center accelerator market growing at a 45% CAGR through 2030, reaching $1.4 trillion in revenue, and says its server CPUs are used by hyperscalers including Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, and Google. Other catalysts include its Helios rack-scale systems, semi-custom processors for next-generation Sony and Microsoft consoles, and PC client CPU revenue up 23% to $3.1 billion, with market share estimated at 30.3% versus 23.9% a year earlier, while global PC shipments fell 4%.
Get the briefing on Telegram or Zalo
Join the Upside Telegram channel or Zalo group for the Vietnam stocks and gold briefing at 8:00 and 19:00 (Vietnam time) on trading days, plus a weekly wrap on Saturday morning.