- Broadcom is rumored to have an ongoing partnership with Apple to help it build its own AI chip
- TikTok parent company, ByteDance, OpenAI also reportedly in the picture
- The move comes as hyperscalers look to reduce their dependency on AI chips from Nvidia
Nvidia has ridden the generative AI boom to record-breaking revenues and profits over the past two years, and while it remains well ahead of its competitors, the company is facing growing pressure – not only from rival AMD but also from hyperscalers which have traditionally relied on Nvidia GPUs but are now looking to reduce their dependence on its hardware.
As The Next Platform notes, “Nvidia’s biggest problem is that its biggest customers have massive enough IT expenditures that they can afford to compete with Nvidia and AMD and design their own XPUs for serial and parallel computing. And when they do so, it is chip design and manufacturing houses Broadcom and Marvell, who have vast expertise running chippery through the foundries of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, who will be benefiting.”
In its most recent earnings conference call, Hock Tan, President and CEO of Broadcom, told investors, “Specific hyperscalers have begun their respective journeys to develop their own custom AI accelerators or XPUs, as well as network these XPUs with open and scalable Ethernet connectivity. As you know, we currently have three hyper-scale customers who have developed their own multi-generational AI XPU roadmap to be deployed at varying rates over the next three years. In 2027, we believe each of them plans to deploy one million XPU clusters across a single fabric.”
Gaining its fair share
Without naming specific companies, Tan added, “To compound this, we have been selected by two additional hyperscalers and are in advanced development for their own next-generation AI XPUs.”
It is widely believed that Broadcom is working with Google and Meta, and as we previously reported, with ByteDance and OpenAI on custom AI chips.
Apple is also thought to be developing its first artificial intelligence server chip, codenamed “Baltra,” with Broadcom providing the advanced networking technologies essential for AI processing.
During the Q&A portion of the earnings call, when Tan was asked about market share, he responded, “All we are going to do is gain our fair share. We’re just very well positioned today, having the best technology, very relevant in this space. We have, by far, one of the best combination technologies out there to do XPUs and to connect those XPUs. The silicon technology that enables it, we have it here in Broadcom by the boatloads, which is why we are very well positioned with these three customers of ours.”
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waynewilliams@onmail.com (Wayne Williams)
