Google Taps TSMC and MediaTek for AI Chip Supply Chain to Challenge NVIDIA

As generative AI booms, Nvidia has used its GPUs to establish a near-monopoly over the global computing-power market. Seeking to break that grip, Google is aggressively pitching its tensor processing units, or TPUs, to emerging cloud providers such as Nscale, opening a new front in the competition. The push directly challenges Nvidia’s dominance and could reshape the market and control of global AI infrastructure.

In the latest development, Google and Blackstone have teamed up to form a new company, with Blackstone providing an initial $5 billion and total investment expected to reach $25 billion. The venture plans to begin offering TPU cloud-computing capacity for rent in 2027. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has responded swiftly with financial incentives for emerging cloud providers as he seeks to shore up their support. The chip battle is expanding beyond technology into an infrastructure contest worth tens of billions of dollars.

Google has long developed its own Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, to train and run models for internal AI services and Google Cloud customers, reducing its reliance on NVIDIA GPUs. Its reported talks with networking and custom-chip specialist Marvell could determine whether Google can expand its supply of AI computing capacity and strengthen its competitiveness in the cloud market.

The latest reports say Google is in talks with Marvell to jointly design two AI chips: a TPU memory processing unit, or MPU, and a next-generation TPU. The custom chips are reportedly set to use Intel’s Intel 18A process, with design work potentially completed as early as 2027. The value of the partnership has not been disclosed. The news sent Marvell shares up 6.3%.