Google is reportedly building a chip with Gemini's architecture permanently etched into the silicon

[Pixel Mark]

Alphabet shares rose as much as 3.7 percent Monday after The Information reported Google is developing a new server chip, informally called Frozen v2, that would permanently embed elements of its Gemini AI model directly into the hardware itself, rather than running the model as software on general purpose chips the way things normally work. Engineers reportedly project it could serve six to ten times more AI tokens per unit of power than Google's current custom TPU chips

The idea is genuinely unusual, most AI chips are flexible, you load whatever model you want onto them and they run it. A chip with Gemini's blueprint etched into the silicon trades that flexibility for speed and efficiency, since a fixed design means less data has to move back and forth and responses can come back with very little delay, useful for anything real time like a voice assistant. The tradeoff is real too, the chip would only work with future Gemini models if Google keeps the same underlying architecture, and Google reportedly views this first version partly as a trial run rather than something built at TPU scale

Google is targeting deployment as early as 2028, though engineers are still finalizing the design and how much of the model actually gets hardwired in. The project comes as Google Cloud has reportedly had to decline some outside customer deals due to an internal AI computing capacity crunch, giving the effort a clear practical motivation beyond pure innovation

The timing is notable given Google's broader AI struggles this month, Bloomberg reported last week that the company delayed its next Gemini Pro release after it fell short of internal targets, particularly on coding, and Google has lost several senior researchers to rivals recently. Chinese models are also gaining ground fast, reportedly now accounting for 45 percent of US company token usage, with fresh releases from Moonshot AI and Alibaba over the weekend narrowing the capability gap further. Separately, Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis is on Capitol Hill this week pitching lawmakers on a FINRA-style, largely industry funded watchdog to test the most advanced AI models for national security risks before release

Alphabet stock pops on report it's developing a more efficient AI chipwww.cnbc.com

[Scholar29]

A chip that is the model rather than a chip that just runs the model is such a strange and genuinely different bet compared to how every other AI hardware company is approaching this problem