Foxconn, one of NVIDIA's largest supply chain partners, has reportedly received orders for AI clusters around Google's TPUs, marking a significant shift for the Taiwanese manufacturer.
Foxconn Will Ship Out NVIDIA's AI Servers & Google's TPU Racks, Playing On Both Sides of the Game
There's no doubt that the buzz around ASICs, especially after the release of Google's latest Ironwood TPU platform, has become increasingly mainstream. More importantly, Google's TPUs are rumored to be on the verge of adoption among several companies, with a notable name being Meta. This is why TPUs are evolving into a platform that is now targeting external adoption. According to a report by the Taiwan Economic Daily, Foxconn has received orders for Google's TPU compute trays and will also collaborate on Google's 'Intrinsic' robotics plans.
Industry insiders say that Google's AI servers, built with its self-developed TPUs, are mainly divided into two racks: one rack for TPUs and the other for computing trays. According to Google's proposed supply chain, for every rack of TPUs shipped, Foxconn will ship one rack of computing trays, resulting in a 1:1 supply ratio.
- Taiwan Economic Daily
Well, if you are unaware, Google's 7th-generation TPUs aren't just limited to a chip configuration; rather, the firm has scalable 'rack' infrastructure in place, which it calls the 'Superpod'. It offers 9,216 chips per pod, resulting in a cumulative performance of 42.5 exaFLOPS in aggregate FP8 compute workloads, with the InterChip Interconnect (ICI). Google utilizes a 3D Torus layout for its TPUs, which enables high-density interconnect across large numbers of chips. The report claims that Foxconn will be responsible for producing computing trays for Google, based on the TPU rack orders it receives.
Since inferencing is being a lot more dominant within AI workloads, companies are rushing to restructure their compute portfolio to get the best inference performance, within optimal TCOs, which is why Google's TPUs are being touted as the leading candidate in the AI application phase. Of course, this raises a whole debate about whether NVIDIA could be replaced by custom silicon from Big Tech, but for now, it's essential to note that the supply chain is witnessing immense interest in TPU solutions from Google.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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