Alphabet’s New AI Chip, Ironwood, Delivers Unmatched Speed for AI Inference Tasks

News Desk

Islamabad: Alphabet unveiled on Wednesday, its seventh-generation artificial intelligence chip, named Ironwood, designed to enhance the performance of AI applications. The Ironwood processor is optimized for the type of data-intensive calculations required for inference computing, the process behind generating quick responses in AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

This development marks a significant milestone in Alphabet’s ongoing, multi-billion dollar AI chip initiative, which has been underway for nearly a decade. The Ironwood chip emerges as one of the few competitive alternatives to Nvidia’s industry-leading AI processors.

While Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) have primarily been exclusive to the company’s engineers or available via its cloud platform, they have provided Alphabet with a competitive advantage in AI development. For some time, Google has split its TPU line into two categories: one focused on building large AI models and another designed to optimize the cost of running AI applications.

The Ironwood chip, in contrast, focuses on executing AI applications, or inference tasks, and is engineered to scale efficiently with up to 9,216 chips working in tandem. According to Amin Vahdat, Google’s vice president, this new design merges the best elements of previous versions while increasing available memory, making it better suited for serving AI workloads.

Vahdat emphasized that inference is becoming an increasingly crucial aspect of AI, underscoring the importance of Ironwood’s capabilities. The new chips offer twice the performance for the same amount of energy as Google’s previous Trillium chip, announced last year. Alphabet uses its own chips to power its Gemini AI models.

While the company has not revealed which manufacturer is producing the Ironwood chip, Alphabet’s share prices saw a significant boost, surging 9.7% during the regular trading session following President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement of a reversal on tariffs.