News Intel lands $15 billion foundry deal for custom Microsoft processor — 18A process tech to be used for 'very exciting platform shift

[Admin]

Microsoft will spend $15 billion on production and packaging of custom 18A processors at Intel Foundry.

Intel lands $15 billion foundry deal for custom Microsoft processor — 18A process tech to be used for 'very exciting platform shift : Read more

 

[Albert.Thomas]

"Very exciting platform shift"

Oh goodness, how are they going to screw things up this time? The "exciting" changes with Windows 11 have all but pushed me over to Linux.

 

[bigdragon]

I bet Microsoft releases a product that combines the Surface Pro with a Nintendo Switch. They'll call it the XBox Surface, size it at 13 inches, have a keyboard folio, and have detachable side controllers like the Switch. You'll be able to dock it to act like a console or take it with you for portable gaming. The system could double as a Windows PC in either capacity. This thing will launch along with Windows 12 next year.

Do I know for sure? Nope. All the talk about physical media going away, platform shifts, XBox getting out of the home console market, Microsoft's acquisitions of game studios, and these custom chips makes me think they're going this way.

 

[bit_user]

"We are in the midst of a very exciting platform shift that will fundamentally transform productivity for every individual organization and the entire industry," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

I'm pretty certain this is a reference to AI. It's a little hard to imagine anything bigger in the pipeline, at MS. Plus, they've been pumping AI pretty hard, so it'd make sense for them to be talking about it like this.

 

[jp7189]

Undoubtedly this will be something to bolster AI cloud services which will extend to end-user devices, but I doubt they are talking about a chip directly for user devices. Presumably any type of AI "coprocessor" for an end device would come from the platform vendor and not MS directly.