Microsoft would like to mainly use its own chips in its data centers in the future, the tech giant’s chief technology officer said on Wednesday, in a move which could reduce its reliance on major players like Nvidia and AMD.

Semiconductors and the servers that sit inside data centers have underpinned the development of artificial intelligence models and applications.

Tech giant Nvidia has dominated the space so far with its graphics processing unit (GPUs), while rival AMD has a smaller slice of the pie.

But major cloud computing players, including Microsoft, have also designed their own custom chips for specifically for data centers.

Kevin Scott, chief technology officer at Microsoft, laid out the company’s strategy around chips for AI during a fireside chat at Italian Tech Week that was moderated by CNBC.

Microsoft primarily uses chips from Nvidia and AMD in its own data centers. The focus has been on picking the right silicon — another shorthand term for semiconductor — that offers “the best price performance” per chip.

“We’re not religious about what the chips are. And … that has meant the best price performance solution has been Nvidia for years and years now,” Scott said. “We will literally entertain anything in order to ensure that we’ve got enough capacity to meet this demand.”

At the same time, Microsoft has been using some of its own chips.

In 2023, Microsoft launched the Azure Maia AI Accelerator which is designed for AI workloads, as well as the Cobalt CPU. In addition, the firm is reportedly working on its next-generation of semiconductor products. Last week, the U.S. technology giant unveiled new cooling technology using “microfluids” to solve the issue of overheating chips.

When asked if the longer term plan is to have mainly Microsoft chips in the firm’s own data centers, Scott said: “Absolutely,” adding that the company is using “lots of Microsoft” silicon right now.

The focus on chips is part of a strategy to eventually design an entire system that goes into the data center, Scott said.

“It’s about the entire system design. It’s the networks and the cooling and you want to be able to have the freedom to make the decisions that you need to make in order to really optimize your compute to the workload,” Scott said.

Microsoft and its rivals Google and Amazon are designing their own chips to not only reduce reliance on Nvidia and AMD, but also to make their products more efficient for their specific requirements.

Tech giants including Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet and Microsoft have committed to more than $300 billion of capital expenditures this year, with much of that focused on AI investments as they look to satisfy booming demand for AI.

Scott flagged that there is still a shortage of computing capacity.

“[A] massive crunch [in compute] is probably an understatement,” Scott said. “I think we have been in a mode where it’s been almost impossible to build capacity fast enough since ChatGPT … launched.”

Microsoft has been building capacity through data centers but it’s still not enough to meet demand, the CTO warned.

“Even our most ambitious forecasts are just turning out to be insufficient on a regular basis. And so … we deployed an incredible amount of capacity over the past year and it will be even more over the coming handful of years,” Scott said.

Amazon on Wednesday expanded its private-label grocery lineup with the launch of a new brand aimed at “price-conscious” shoppers, with most products priced under $5.

The brand is called Amazon Grocery and includes more than 1,000 items, ranging from dairy, fresh produce, meat and seafood to snacks and baking essentials, the company said in a release. Amazon said the new offering unites its Happy Belly and Amazon Fresh brands under one label.

“During a time when consumers are particularly price-conscious, Amazon Grocery delivers more than 1,000 quality grocery items across all categories that don’t compromise on quality or taste – from fresh food items to crave-worthy snacks and pantry essentials – all at low, competitive prices that help customers stretch their grocery budgets further,” Jason Buechel, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide grocery, said in a statement.

It’s not the first time Amazon has experimented with a budget-friendly grocery brand. It launched a similar offering last September, called Amazon Saver, that was “focused on value.”

The move comes as Amazon’s grocery business has been in flux.

The company has continued to streamline its chain of Go cashierless convenience stores and Fresh supermarkets, announcing last week that it will close all of its locations in the U.K.

At the same time, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks.

The company last month expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S. as it looks to encourage shoppers to add meat and eggs to their order while they’re browsing its sprawling online store.

SINGAPORE — World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture linked to U.S. President Donald Trump, is planning to launch new products, including a debit card and tokenized commodity assets, as the Trump crypto empire continues to grow.

The firm’s CEO, Zach Witkoff, made the announcements speaking alongside WLFI’s co-founder, Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday.

The debit card would “bridge crypto assets with everyday spending,” Witkoff told a crowd in Singapore at the Token 2049, one of the world’s largest crypto conferences. 

“We’ll be rolling out a pilot program here in the next quarter and that debit card will either be live Q4 or Q1’26,” said Zach, who is the son of Steve Witkoff, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East under the Trump administration.

Zak Folkman, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, had reportedly teased the rollout of a debit card along with a retail application at Korea Blockchain Week 2025 last month. However, Trump Jr. and Witkoff said the company wasn’t ready to make an announcement regarding the consumer-facing app.

Witkoff said the team is also looking into the tokenization of real world commodities. 

“We’ve not only thought about it, we’re actively working on it,” Witkoff said. “I think commodities are a really interesting area for us, whether it be oil, gas, things like cotton, timber, all of those things, frankly, should be traded on chain.”

World Liberty Financial describes itself as a decentralized finance protocol and cryptocurrency company, and it began publicly trading its crypto token WLFI in September. 

The company has also launched a stablecoin dubbed USD1, which says it is pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by short-term U.S. government treasuries. 

Data in June had found that demand for USD1 on centralized exchanges had been muted. While USD1 had drawn significant volume on decentralized exchanges, more than half of its liquidity came from just three wallets, raising questions about real demand.

The stablecoin market is vast with USD1 facing stiff competition from existing giants such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.

The WLFI has also seen price volatility since it began trading.

World Liberty Financial announced in August that technology firm ALT5 Sigma would begin buying large quantities of its digital token as part of a WLFI treasury strategy. 

As part of the deal, World Liberty would receive shares in ALT5, according to securities filings, in return for $750 million worth of $WLFI coins.