Google unveils next-generation TPU for cloud computing

Google Cloud TPU (Image credit: Android Central)

At Google I/O today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai provided an update on next generation of the custom-made Tensor Processing Units (TPU) which Google uses power its Google Compute Engine.

These new cloud TPUs feature four chips on a single board and are capable of generating 180 teraflops (180 trillion floating-point operations per second — the top-end NVIDIA GTX Titan X GPU runs at just 11 teraflops). Furthermore, Google has managed to link 64 of these TPUs into one TPU Pod super computer, for a combined processing power of 11.5 petaflops. Pichai says this new technology "lays the foundation for significant progress".

Google first announced TPUs at 2016's Google I/O.

Marc Lagace was an Apps and Games Editor at Android Central between 2016 and 2020. You can reach out to him on Twitter [@spacelagace.