Alphabet’s Google on Monday introduced two new versions of its in-house artificial intelligence chips, intensifying its challenge to Nvidia’s dominance in the fast-growing AI semiconductor market as demand for computing capacity surges.
Alphabet shares rose more than 3% in early trading.
Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) have traditionally powered its own products, including Search, YouTube and Gemini. But the company is increasingly making the processors available through Google Cloud as it seeks to attract enterprise customers developing and deploying AI applications.
TPU sales made a meaningful contribution to Alphabet’s results in the September quarter, the company said. Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to $30.71 billion during the period, reflecting growing demand for AI infrastructure and cloud services.
The newly introduced 8tx and 8i Max are redesigned versions of Google’s existing processors, tailored to different customer requirements, the company said. Bloomberg News first reported the development earlier on Monday.
The 8tx targets government agencies and companies operating in regulated industries, where protecting sensitive information during data processing is a critical requirement.
The chip combines Google’s processor technology with AMD’s processors and incorporates hardware-level encryption. It delivers up to twice the speed of its predecessor with virtually no trade-off in performance, Google said.
The 8i Max, meanwhile, is designed for AI workloads requiring the simultaneous processing of large volumes of information.
It combines two chips in a single package to increase memory capacity and computing power, making it suitable for applications including coding assistants, mathematical reasoning and drug discovery, Google said.
The expansion of Google’s TPU portfolio underscores its efforts to position its cloud infrastructure as an alternative to systems powered by Nvidia’s graphics processing units, which dominate the market for training and running advanced AI models.
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Faustine Ngila is the AI Editor at Impact Newswire, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is an award-winning journalist specializing in artificial intelligence, blockchain, and emerging technologies.
He previously worked as a global technology reporter at Quartz in New York and Digital Frontier in London, where he covered innovation, startups, and the global digital economy.
With years of experience reporting on cutting-edge technologies, Faustine focuses on AI developments, industry trends, and the impact of technology on society.
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