On Tuesday, Google announced the launch of a new AI chip and an Arm-based central processor for data centers. The new Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), accessible only via Google Cloud, challenges NVIDIA’s dominance in AI chips.
“We’re making it easy for customers to bring their existing workloads to Arm,” said Mark Lohmeyer, Google Cloud’s vice president and general manager of compute and machine learning infrastructure. “Axion is built on open foundations but customers using Arm anywhere can easily adopt Axion without re-architecting or re-writing their apps.”
The Arm-based CPU, named Axion, promises superior performance compared to existing x86 and general-purpose Arm chips, targeting a competitive edge in cloud computing services against rivals like Amazon and Microsoft.
Axion, already powering Google services like YouTube Ads, will be broadly available later this year. Google’s latest TPU, designed for large-scale pods and featuring liquid cooling, doubles the performance of its predecessor. The unveiling marks Google’s continuous innovation in custom chip technology for various applications, including AI, YouTube, and smartphones.
