Alphabet Inc.'s Google plans to team up with the Taiwanese semiconductor company MediaTek to work on the next version of its artificial intelligence chips, known as Tensor Processing Units (TUP), starting next year, the Information reported on Monday, citing two people involved in the project.
According to the report, one of the reasons why Google chose to work with MediaTek is because of its "strong" relationship with another Taiwanese firm, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), and the price per chip that Google has to pay MediaTek, compared to its other partner, Broadcom Inc. The report also stated that despite the previous disputes over Broadcom's prices, Google intends to keep working with the California-based company to co-design the chips that TSMC makes in Taiwanese factories.
Google is set to design most of the next TPU, including the processor, while MediaTek will be mainly in charge of input/output modules, which connect the main processor to the peripheral components.
