Alphabet is gaining momentum in its bid to challenge Nvidia’s AI-chip dominance, as strong early reactions to its new Gemini model and rising demand for accelerators have pushed its stock up 37% since mid-October, adding roughly $1 trillion in value. This surge is prompting investors to reassess the competitive landscape in AI hardware and cloud infrastructure.
Google said on Thursday that Ironwood, the seventh generation of its Tensor Processing Unit, will become publicly available in the coming weeks after debuting for testing and deployment in April. Gemini 3, released on 18 November, was trained primarily on TPUs, giving Google’s chips renewed industry attention. Anthropic plans to use up to one million Ironwood units for running Claude, and Meta—one of the world’s largest AI and data-centre spenders—is reportedly exploring TPUs for deployments starting in 2027. Google is also promoting TPUs to its broader cloud customer base, estimating they could capture around 10% of Nvidia’s annual revenue.
The long-term question is whether Google’s tensor chips can match the efficiency and performance needed to become a sustained alternative to Nvidia’s GPUs. A potential Meta deal illustrates how serious that challenge could become. Alphabet now sits roughly $300 billion below Nvidia’s $4.2 trillion market cap.
Sources:
1. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alphabet-rally-threatens-world-most-104028610.html
2. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/google-unveils-ironwood-seventh-generation-tpu-competing-with-nvidia.html
3. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-stock-falls-after-report-says-google-meta-in-talks-for-multibillion-dollar-ai-chip-deal-143725770.html
4. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-gemini-3-advances-shake-140624037.html
