MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares rose yesterday after tech news site The Information reported that Taiwan’s largest chip designer is developing a next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chip in collaboration with Alphabet Inc’s Google.
The reported partnership with Google comes after MediaTek in January said it had worked with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for AI supercomputers.
Shares rose as much as 5 percent early yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange before paring gains to 3.51 percent. That compares with the broader market’s 0.69 percent increase yesterday.
Photo: David Chang, EPA-EFE
The Information on Monday reported that Google is preparing to partner with MediaTek on the next version of its in-house Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) AI chip.
The US tech giant released the sixth-generation TPU at the end of last year and is aiming for the seventh generation next year, the report said, citing people involved in the project.
Google designs its own AI server chips, which it uses for internal research and development, and also rents out to its cloud service customers, while reducing its reliance on Nvidia, the report said.
The company chose MediaTek over Broadcom Inc, which Google has worked with exclusively on AI chips in the past few years, because MediaTek maintains a strong relationship with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, the report added.
In addition, MediaTek charges Google less per chip than Broadcom, it said.
However, Google has not completely severed ties with Broadcom, it added, citing anonymous sources.
Booming demand for AI has fueled growth for global IC designers, with Nvidia topping the sector with an astonishing 125 percent growth in revenue last year to US$124.38 billion, widening its lead over competitors, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report on Monday.
MediaTek was the fifth-largest IC designer in the world last year after revenue rose 19 percent year-on-year to US$16.52 billion, driven by strong performance across smartphones, power management ICs and smart edge solutions, the Taipei-based advisory firm said.
US-based Qualcomm Inc, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices Inc were the second, third and fourth-largest IC designers last year, TrendForce said.
The world’s top 10 IC designers generated US$249.8 billion in combined revenue last year, a 49 percent annual increase, it added.
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