Google and Intel have announced a strengthened multi-year partnership for Google Cloud to continue using Intel AI infrastructure and jointly develop processors.
Google Cloud will leverage Intel’s Xeon processors, including the latest Xeon 6 chips, for AI, cloud, and inference tasks. The company has relied on Intel’s Xeon processors for many years.
The collaboration will further include the co-development of custom infrastructure processing units (IPUs), which optimize and manage data center operations by transferring tasks from CPUs.
This partnership, initiated in 2021, will concentrate on creating custom ASIC-based IPUs.
Intel has not disclosed any pricing details regarding this agreement.
This growth occurs amid a high demand for CPUs in the industry. While GPUs are key for AI model development and training, CPUs play a vital role in running AI models and supporting general AI infrastructure.
“AI is reshaping how infrastructure is built and scaled,” remarked Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan in a press release. “Scaling AI requires more than accelerators — it requires balanced systems. CPUs and IPUs are central to delivering the performance, efficiency, and flexibility modern AI workloads demand.”
Recently, more companies have refocused on CPUs due to a growing chip shortage.
Arm Holdings, owned by SoftBank, has announced the Arm AGI CPU — its first self-produced chip, addressing the global CPU supply challenge.