(RTTNews) - AI chip maker Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) announced that it has signed a multiyear technology partnership with South Korean semiconductor supplier SK Hynix Inc. (000660.KS) to co-develop and advance next-generation memory for AI factories. Both companies will also apply AI to
(RTTNews) - AI chip maker Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) announced that it has signed a multiyear technology partnership with South Korean semiconductor supplier SK Hynix Inc. (000660.KS) to co-develop and advance next-generation memory for AI factories. Both companies will also apply AI to
Just_Super/iStock via Getty Images Google ( GOOGL ) blew the doors off with its latest earnings report—cloud growth rapidly accelerated, margins expanded, and backlog soared 400% YoY to $462 billion. However, the quarter 's most pivotal development wasn 't in the financials; rather, it came from a strategic announcement. In April, Google announced it would begin selling its TPUs to select third-pa...
Just_Super/iStock via Getty Images Google ( GOOGL ) blew the doors off with its latest earnings report—cloud growth rapidly accelerated, margins expanded, and backlog soared 400% YoY to $462 billion. However, the quarter 's most pivotal development wasn 't in the financials; rather, it came from a strategic announcement. In April, Google announced it would begin selling its TPUs to select third-party data center operators, which is something the market has anticipated for nearly a decade. The TPU-versus-Nvidia-GPU debate has long fueled both bulls and bears; yet it may finally carry real stakes. Google 's announcement is far from a coincidence—it is driven by several converging factors that make now the right moment to move. As hyperscalers look to monetize their models, AI workloads are expanding from training to inference. This changes the focus away from accumulating expensive compute to a very different goal, which is lowering cost per token in order to scale inference economically. In a previous article covering Google 's TPUv7 , we stated: “[...] custom silicon 's cost advantages and ability to drive lower inference serving costs at scale create a strong value proposition for Big Tech.” Building on this, NVIDIA ( NVDA ) may be facing a Rubin delay, which opens a window of opportunity for Google to make the case for diversification beyond a single vendor for AI accelerators. Below, we look at how Google 's entrance into the merchant AI accelerator market sits at the center of three converging trends - and how the newly released TPU v8 generation positions custom silicon to meet the moment, giving Google a fighting chance against Nvidia. The Shift From AI Training to Inference: Why It Opens a Window of Opportunity for Google To understand why the market is opening up for more players, we should first discuss why inference is becoming the dominant AI workload—and what this means for Nvidia. Training frontier models is a discrete, multi-month event with a clear be...