Microsoft has delayed the mass production of its next-generation Maia AI chips until 2026.

According to a report from The Information, the tech giant has pushed mass production of the new AI chips, codenamed Braga, back by at least six months. Braga is expected to be renamed Maia 200 upon its release.

Microsoft had hoped to deploy the Braga chip into data centers this year, but delays attributed to unanticipated design changes, staffing constraints, and high turnover have made this impossible.

Design changes included the addition of features requested by OpenAI, which made the chip unstable in simulations and set the project back by several months, the report noted. Meanwhile, Microsoft executives’ refusal to shift the project’s deadline led to stress amongst workers and resulted in as many as one-fifth of staff on some chip design teams leaving.

In addition to weighing in on Microsoft’s home-grown chip development efforts, OpenAI is also building its own AI chips in partnership with Broadcom and has hired one of the leads of Google’s TPUs to head the effort.

Microsoft unveiled its Maia 100 accelerator in November 2023 and, according to The Information, had developed a roadmap that included the production of three inferencing chips – codenamed Braga, Braga-R, and Clea, to be deployed into data centers in 2025, 2026, and 2027, respectively. Plans to design a training-focused chip were reportedly scrapped by the company in early 2024.

The hyperscaler began developing its own AI chips in an effort to reduce its reliance on Nvidia hardware. However, the report claimed that, because the Maia 100 accelerator was designed for image processing rather than generative AI, it isn’t powering any of the company’s AI services, and has instead just been used internally for staff training purposes.

Furthermore, as a result of these most recent delays, concerns have reportedly been raised about whether the Braga chip will be able to effectively compete with Nvidia’s Blackwell offering when it is eventually released.

Citing three people involved with Microsoft’s chip design efforts, The Information reported that the company is unlikely to come close to competing with Nvidia until the release of Maia 300 – the chip currently labeled Clea on the company’s roadmap – as it will be based on an entirely new chip design.

Microsoft declined to comment when approached by The Information.