This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) shares climbed more than 5% on early Monday after a media report indicated Alphabet’s Google is in discussions to jointly develop a pair of custom chips aimed at handling artificial intelligence workloads more efficiently.
The reported talks center on two distinct components. One would be a memory processing unit built to operate alongside Google’s existing tensor processing units, while the other involves a new TPU tailored specifically for AI inference tasks. The companies could finalize the memory chip design as early as next year before shifting toward test production.
For Google, the collaboration with Marvell represents another step in positioning its in-house TPU hardware as a viable alternative to the graphics processors sold by Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA). Google has recently expanded external sales of its TPU chips and launched a software initiative to make the hardware compatible with PyTorch, a widely adopted AI framework.
Marvell stands to benefit from deeper integration into a major cloud provider’s supply chain. The potential arrangement comes as technology firms continue seeking diversified sources for the advanced silicon required to power data centers and generative AI models.
