Google upcoming Pixel devices is slated to be the company’s first smartphones that are powered by their own, custom-designed Tensor SoCs. According to sources in the industry, Google is reportedly planning to introduce their in-house chips for future tablets and Chromebooks, starting in 2023.
Google has already revealed that they will be using their custom-designed Tensor chips to run the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. The ‘Tensor’ comes from the chips called Tensor processing unit (TPU) that Google released back in 2016 for data centre cloud workloads that needed artificial intelligence acceleration.
Even in the smartphone space, Google has some experience in chip making where they introduced the Pixel Visual Core with the Pixel 2 series. The Pixel 6 series will be the first smartphones from Google that are entirely powered by their in-house chips.
If the in-house chip venture becomes successful for Google, it is only natural that the company expands the portfolio and introduce Tensor chips into future tablets and Chromebooks. According to Google, tensor is highly scalable, which makes it much easier to power up or down the capabilities of the chip based on the need. Chromebooks in particular have witnessed massive growth in the last two years, and Google will definitely be looking to take advantage of that.