Google is bringing custom tensor processing units to its public cloud

Google has begun to build its own custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip called tensor processing units (TPUs), Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said today at the Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View, California. The name is inspired by Google's TensorFlow open source deep learning framework. But the technology is one of a kind -- something that makes sense only at Google scale. These TPUs were used in the AlphaGo artificial intelligence (AI) powered Go player that beat top-ranked Go player Lee Sedol, Pichai said. It also works inside Google search and Google Street View.