Microsoft has been building its own silicon in various forms for a long time.

Judged as of 2026-01-28. True if the record shows that Microsoft has designed or built its own silicon in various forms over a long span (many years, e.g., at least about a decade), such as Xbox custom chips, HoloLens HPU, Azure FPGA (Project Catapult/Brainwave), Pluton security processor, Azure Boost/Cobalt/Maia chips. Mostly true if Microsoft has a substantial custom-silicon history but its in-house design work is somewhat shorter or narrower than 'a long, long time' implies (e.g., mainly co-designed chips for several years). Mixed if the history is limited to a few scattered projects of disputed in-house status. Mostly false if Microsoft's own silicon efforts only began recently (e.g., within the last 2–3 years) and the earlier work was mostly buying third-party chips. False if Microsoft had no in-house or custom silicon efforts before recent years.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Project Catapult - Microsoft Research Microsoft Research · 7 December 2021 Own record

   “Project Catapult began in 2010 when a small team, led by Doug Burger and Derek Chiou, anticipated the paradigm shift to post-CPU technologies.”

2. E2 Microsoft Infrastructure - AI & CPU Custom Silicon Maia 100, Athena, Cobalt 100 SemiAnalysis · 15 November 2023

   “It should be noted that while Microsoft is currently behind on deploying custom silicon in their datacenters relative to Google and Amazon, they have a long history of silicon projects.”

3. E3 Microsoft Infrastructure - AI & CPU Custom Silicon Maia 100, Athena, Cobalt 100 SemiAnalysis · 15 November 2023

   “Microsoft has also internally developed multiple generations of root of trusts that are found on every single server they install in their datacenters.”

4. E4 Microsoft Reveals Its First Custom Processors ExtremeTech · 15 November 2023

   “But while other companies invested in custom chip designs, Microsoft has not—until now.”

Microsoft Research's own project page dates Project Catapult, its datacenter FPGA work, to 2010 (E1). An independent analysis (E2, E3) says Microsoft has "a long history of silicon projects," including several generations of in-house root-of-trust chips on every datacenter server. However, ExtremeTech described the 2023 Maia and Cobalt chips as Microsoft's first custom processors (E4). That suggests its in-house processor design work is narrower than "a long, long time" implies, even though its wider silicon work goes back more than a decade.