Published in AI

Google's Axion packs a punch

by on10 April 2024


Google squares off against the AI competition

Google Cloud's thrown its hat into the ring with Axion, its first custom-built Arm brawler, promising a 30 per cent beefier performance than other Arm contenders from AWS and Microsoft. They're even boasting a 50 per cent muscle-up and 60 per cent more energy thriftiness than the X86 heavyweights.

Google's playing coy, keeping the proof of these stats under wraps. There are no documents, dates, or dosh details. Those "benchmark" brags? Mums, the word on what X86 contender they're squaring up against.

Amanda Lam, Google's mouthpiece, assures tech hackers and hackettes who do not automatically believe what is written in the press release that benchmarking and architecture details will drop later this year. So, we're left twiddling our thumbs, wondering if Axion is the champ it claims to be.

Let's not overlook Google's track record in the chip championship. They've been showcasing their prowess with TPU AI chips and, more recently, custom Arm technology for their Pixel phones. While AWS may have made the first move with Graviton in '18, Google is poised to take the lead with Axion, backed by their extensive experience and innovation in the field.

Microsoft's not sitting this one out, either. Just last year, it teased us with Cobalt Arm chips. But like a heavyweight fight that's all hype, no one's seen them in action yet. Azure's been dishing out Ampere's Arm servings since '22, though.

One of Axion's key advantages is its open foundation. This means that cloud customers can seamlessly migrate their existing Arm workloads to Google Cloud without any hassle.

Mark Lohmeyer, Google Cloud's compute and AI/ML infrastructure VP, strongly advocates this open-arms approach, highlighting its contribution to the SystemReady Virtual Environment. This commitment ensures a smooth and effortless software transition to ARM-based systems.

 

Last modified on 10 April 2024
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