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thanhhaimaiyesterday at 4:33 PM16 repliesview on HN

Opinions are my own.

I think the biggest winner of this might be Google. Virtually all the frontier AI labs use TPU. The only one that doesn't use TPU is OpenAI due to the exclusive deal with Microsoft. Given the newly launched Gen 8 TPU this month, it's likely OpenAI will contemplate using TPU too.


Replies

celeritascelerytoday at 12:43 PM

Maybe I am missing something here, but if all the frontier AI labs use TPU, why is Nvidia making so much money?

unixherotoday at 1:07 PM

Why is it called frontier and why is it called a frontier ai lab?

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bastawhizyesterday at 6:04 PM

Many labs use TPUs, but not exclusively. Most labs need more compute than they can get, and if there's TPU capacity, they'll adapt their systems to be able to run partially on TPUs.

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maxclarkyesterday at 4:40 PM

And almost by happenstance Apple. Turns out they have a great platform for inference and torched almost nothing comparatively on Siri. The Apple/Gemini deal is interesting, Google continues to demonstrate their willingness to degrade their experience on Apple to try and force people to switch.

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kushalpandyatoday at 2:27 AM

I wish Google would launch Mac Mini-like devices running their consumer-grade TPUs for local inference. I get that they don't want it to eat into their GCP margins, but it would still get them into consumer desktops that Pixel Books could never penetrate (Chromebooks don't count and may likely become obsolete soon due to MacBook Neo).

freakynittoday at 1:44 AM

Had written a blog post on the same a few days back, if anyone's interested in readng (hardly 5 minute read): Can Google Win the AI Hardware Race Through TPUs?

https://google-ai-race.pagey.site/

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alphabeta3r56today at 12:53 AM

> Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI. > Revenue share payments from OpenAI to Microsoft continue through 2030, independent of OpenAI’s technology progress, at the same percentage but subject to a total cap.

How is this helping OpenAI?

VirusNewbieyesterday at 4:42 PM

OpenAI uses GCP. I don't know if they use TPUs.

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/openai-taps...

agentbc9000today at 10:03 AM

Dont forget Elon, i am sure this news will come up on the up and coming OpenAI vs Elon Musk trail starting soon! I cant wait to hear all the discovery from this trail

ignoramousyesterday at 9:42 PM

> The only one that doesn't use TPU is OpenAI

For inference? This is from July 2025: OpenAI tests Google TPUs amid rising inference cost concerns, https://www.networkworld.com/article/4015386/openai-tests-go... / https://archive.vn/zhKc4

> ... due to the exclusive deal with Microsoft

This exclusivity went away in Oct 2025 (except for 'API' workloads).

  OpenAI has contracted to purchase an incremental $250B of Azure services, and Microsoft will no longer have a right of first refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider.
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/10/28/the-next-chapter... / https://archive.vn/1eF0V
PKopyesterday at 6:06 PM

[flagged]

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sdevonoesyesterday at 10:22 PM

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terobyteyesterday at 11:44 PM

I heard a lot of rumors that google is cooking. And it is what will win the ai game

philipptayesterday at 6:07 PM

In the recent Dwarkesh Podcast episode Jensen Huang (Nvidia) said that virtually nobody but Anthropic uses TPUs. How does that add up?

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rishabhaioveryesterday at 8:44 PM

The only reason anyone uses a TPU is because they couldn't get the best GPUs.

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bastardoperatoryesterday at 6:31 PM

You think the company that just gave 40B to Anthropic is the winner? Interesting.

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