Rumor

Google reportedly develops in-house 2nm TPU project excluding Broadcom and MediaTek

Wednesday, January 7, 2026 at 03:27 PM

Google is reportedly developing a fully in-house 2nm TPU utilizing its own chip-on-wafer-on-substrate design capabilities, potentially bypassing current partners Broadcom and MediaTek for this specific project. Additionally, MediaTek faces increased competitive pressure in its mobile processor division due to aggressive pricing from Qualcomm.

Context

Google is reportedly pivoting to a fully in-house, CoT-designed (Customer-Owned Tooling) 2nm TPU project, a radical strategic shift that seeks to eliminate its long-standing reliance on ASIC partners Broadcom and MediaTek. While Broadcom has served as Google's primary silicon implementation partner for nearly a decade, and MediaTek was recently tapped for lower-cost I/O modules on the 7th-generation Ironwood chips, this new initiative aims for total vertical integration. By owning the entire design flow and instruction set, Google intends to bypass external design fees and gain a structural cost advantage as it positions its TPU ecosystem as the premier alternative to Nvidia. The stakes are high for the supply chain, as Broadcom has historically derived a significant portion of its AI revenue from Google's orders, which reached an estimated $6 billion to $9 billion in 2024 alone. For MediaTek, the news dampens recent market euphoria; despite a 19% stock rally in early 2026 fueled by TPU optimism, analysts now warn that projected volumes of 2.5 million units may be at risk. This shift occurs as MediaTek’s core smartphone business faces a brutal price war with Qualcomm, forcing a desperate pivot toward high-margin custom AI silicon that Google now threatens to bring entirely under its own roof.

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