TAIPEI: Google is developing its own central processors for laptops and tablets, the latest sign that major technology agents consider the development of internal chips to be key to their competitiveness.
The American Internet giant plans to launch CPUs for laptops and tablets, which run the company’s Chrome operating system, by 2023, three sources familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia.
Google is also stepping up its efforts to build mobile processors for its Pixel smartphones and other devices after announcing it will use internal processor chips for the first time in its upcoming Pixel 6 series, they said.
Google’s growing focus on developing its own chips comes as global rivals pursue a similar strategy to differentiate their offerings. Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla, Baidu and Alibaba Group Holding are competing to build their own semiconductors to power their cloud services and electronics.
Google was especially inspired by Apple’s success in developing its own key semiconductor components for iPhones, as well as last year’s announcement that it would replace Intel CPUs with its own offerings for computers and laptops. Mac, two people familiar with Google’s thinking told Nikkei Asia.
The new CPUs and mobile processors that Google is developing are based on chip plans from Arm, the UK chip company controlled by Softbank, whose intellectual property is used in more than 90% of devices mobiles of the world.
Besides, the company has high hopes for the Pixel 6 range and has asked suppliers to prepare 50% more production capacity of the phones compared to the pre-pandemic level in 2019, two people told Nikkei Asia. Google sent more than 7 million Pixel phones in 2019, the highest figure in history, but only sent 3.7 million phones the following year, as COVID ravaged the world, according to the research company IDC.
Google told several vendors at recent meetings that it considers potential for mass growth opportunities in the global market because it is the only U.S. smartphone maker to build phones using the Android operating system.
As for chip development, experts say Google’s strategy is a logical move, but not without its challenges.
“We’ve found that all tech titans join the foray to build their custom chips, because that way they could program their own functions on those chips that could meet their specific needs,” said Eric Tseng, analyst in chief of Isaiah Research, at Nikkei Asia. . “In this case, these technology companies could easily adjust the workloads in R&D without being restricted by suppliers and offer unique services or technologies. In an ideal scenario, using the chips themselves also means better integration of hardware and software. “.
However, building chips requires massive investments and long-term commitments, and all these new tech players who build their own chips must also fight for production capacity with Intel’s most important existing chip developers, Nvidia, Qualcomm and others, Tseng said.
Peter Hanbury, a partner at consulting firm Bain & Co., told Nikkei Asia that the cost of designing a cutting-edge 5nm chip is now about $ 500 million, compared to about $ 50 million. to develop a chip using more mature production technologies, such as 28 nm technology. “Very few players have the skills or financial resources to design their own chips, so typical players who consider this path are usually extremely large players, such as cloud service providers, or have very valuable applications for these designed chips. especially “.
Google began building its own silicon (called tensor processing units (TPUs)) to facilitate its workloads for artificial intelligence computing for its data center’s cloud servers in 2016. It introduced the fourth generation of TPU this May. It is hiring chip engineers around the world, including Israel, India and Taiwan (all key technology economies) and at home in the United States, according to supply chain executives, employees and job offers. company. Google has already hired chip talent from its key vendors, including Intel, Qualcomm and Mediatek, according to sources and an analysis of Nikkei Asia’s LinkedIn profiles.
Google is one of the world’s leading operating system developers. Most of the world’s top smartphone manufacturers, including Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, use the Android operating system for their phones. Google has also licensed its Chrome operating system to HP, Dell, Acer, AsusTek, Lenovo and Samsung to build Chromebooks, lightweight laptops aimed primarily at the education market.
Google introduced Pixelbook and Pixel Slate, its own laptops and tablets with Chrome OS, in 2017 and 2018, respectively, but annual shipments were less than half a million units, according to IDC data.
Meanwhile, global Chromebook shipments doubled almost last year thanks to the pandemic-driven remote learning boom. Shipments continued to grow during the first half of 2021, due to the surge that has fallen sharply since July.
Google declined to comment beyond confirming its previous announcement that it will use Tensor mobile processors for its upcoming Pixel 6 phones.