Azure & Cloud
October 13, 2026Azure Maia 300: what Microsoft silicon means for Foundry
Microsoft announced Azure Maia 300 on 12 October 2026 with 288 GB of HBM4, 18 TB/s and a claim of 40% more tokens per megawatt, but the chip that reaches Microsoft Foundry by year end is Maia 200, serving OpenAI and open-weight models in unnamed European regions with no price change. What the silicon transition does and does not change for EU data zone deployments, model choice and your evaluation baseline.
Azure Maia
Microsoft Foundry
Azure OpenAI
AI Inference
EU Data Zone
Sweden Central
Azure Policy
AI Infrastructure
By Falak Mahmood