Alphabet wants to reduce its reliance on other companies as the artificial intelligence frenzy heats up. The tech giant has unveiled its proprietary chip as it ventures into the world of semiconductors amid growing demand for chips to power the AI revolution. Axion is the new chip that the company is to rely on to gain a foothold in the competitive AI race as it also seeks to make its cloud solutions more affordable to take on Microsoft and Amazon.
Google’s Axion Chip
In a statement, Google says the new chip can handle massive amounts of data used by AI applications. Additionally, it is grouped into clusters of thousands of chips to enhance its performance. It should be able to handle everything from the vast troves of data from YouTube advertising to extensive data analysis. In addition, the company is working on more powerful versions of the artificial intelligence chips that are available to developers.
The new chip adds to Google’s efforts to develop new computing resources that have stretched for more than a decade. Nevertheless, the company started working on the AI chip in late 2022 after ChatGPT kickstarted an arms race that threatened its edge on the internet.
Nevertheless, it is not the only tech giant that has ventured into the world of making Chips; Amazon and Microsoft have also poured billions of dollars into making their chips as the AI boom intensifies and demand for computing resources grows. With Axion, Google is playing catch up to the other cloud computing heavyweights that have employed the strategy for years, allowing them to control nearly 60% of the market share.
Even though Google is late to the party, its cloud computing unit has grown faster, registering a 26% increase in revenues in the fourth quarter. Likewise, the segment represents 11% of the company’s revenue and should receive a significant boost from a much more affordable chip.
AI Chips Competition
Customers can access the new Axion chip through Google’s cloud late in the year. However, they can only buy the chips indirectly as the company will deploy a different approach to make them available. Not selling directly is part of Google’s attempt to avert the risk of direct competition with its long-time partners, including Nvidia and Intel. The company wants to make its entry into the highly competitive chip market positive for everyone rather than disrupt the status quo.
Given Google’s significant influence in the tech world, its entry into the chip market is expected to impact the semiconductor industry substantially. The competitive race to enable AI is heating up as companies unveil a variety of chips to support the AI revolution. Intel, for instance, has already introduced Gaudi 3, an AI-focused chip designed to train large language models like ChatGPT. Google’s new chip, the Axion, is set to intensify this competition further, potentially reshaping the dynamics of the semiconductor industry.
Intel already claims that its AI chip has an edge over Nvidia’s H100, which has remained the preferred AI chip for most companies operating data centers. Advanced Micro Devices is another company flexing its muscles amid the growing demand for AI chips. The company has already unveiled the M1300X chip, a direct competitor to the Nvidia H100 chipset.
