Google Axion boasts 30% higher performance and superior efficiency, set to take on Microsoft and Amazon

Google is designing custom Arm-based CPU chips, Axion, initially to be used in its data centers and then rolled out for Google Cloud customers later in the year.

With Axion, Google aims to tap into the cloud services segment, where it already has a presence, and not compete with players in the hardware market.

The California-based tech giant won’t be selling these chips. Instead, it will employed to facilitate and support the native cloud service, Google Cloud, which the customers can subscribe to.

Talking about Axion, Google Cloud’s Vice President Mark Lohmeyer, in an interview with Reuters, said,

We’re making it easy for customers to bring their existing workloads to Arm. Axion is built on open foundations but customers using Arm anywhere can easily adopt Axion without re-architecting or re-writing their apps.

Axion is meant to enhance the performance of general-purpose workloads such as web and app servers, open-source databases, media processing, data analytics engines, in-memory caches, CPU-based AI training and inferencing, and more!

Highlighting the performance and efficiency of Google Axion, the official blog post reads,

Axion processors combine Google’s silicon expertise with Arm’s highest performing CPU cores to deliver instances with up to 30% better performance than the fastest general-purpose Arm-based instances available in the cloud today, up to 50% better performance and up to 60% better energy-efficiency than comparable current-generation x86-based instances.

Axion is also an environmentally friendly option, delivering more computing power at the same electrical consumption, making it both sustainable and financially viable for users.

Arm CEO Rene Haas also spoke about Google Axion.

Google’s announcement of the new Axion CPU marks a significant milestone in delivering custom silicon that is optimized for Google’s infrastructure, and built on our high-performance Arm Neoverse V2 platform. Decades of ecosystem investment, combined with Google’s ongoing innovation and open-source software contributions ensure the best experience for the workloads that matter most to customers running on Arm everywhere.

With Axion, Google intends to decrease its dependence on Intel and NVIDIA. Microsoft, too, has previously launched custom silicon chips to ramp up its cloud infrastructure. And much like Microsoft’s custom chips, Axion will also help train AI models!

Other tech giants are also making strides in the AI space. Intel launched Gaudi 3, NVIDIA is working on its own AI chips, Microsoft is in the process of integrating Copilot while also boosting AI capabilities for enterprise users, and Apple has acquired multiple AI startups.

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