Google Further Encroaches on Nvidia’s Turf With New AI Chip Push

Google is talking to Meta and other cloud customers about letting them run Google’s TPU chips in their data centers. The effort could help expand the appeal of Google’s alternative to Nvidia’s AI chips.

Art by Clark Miller

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Google is picking up the pace of its efforts to compete directly with Nvidia in the AI chip business.

For years, the search giant has rented out its own AI chips, known as tensor processing units, to cloud customers who use them in its Google Cloud data centers. Now, though, Google has begun pitching some of those customers—including Meta Platforms and big financial institutions—on the idea of using TPUs in their own data centers, according to people involved in the talks.