source: techcrunch ai: meta’s new ai chips will begin production in september
level: business
meta plans to start producing its newest ai-specific chips in september, according to an internal memo seen by reuters. the chips are part of the meta training and inference accelerator program and passed testing in about six weeks. meta is working with broadcom on design and will use tsmc for manufacturing. it is also sourcing ram from samsung, storage from sandisk, and fiber optic equipment from sumitomo electric.
the company detailed four new chips in march, taking a modular approach to adapt to changing ai needs. these chips will handle training for ranking and recommendation algorithms, broader ai workloads, and inference for meta's applications. meta has been making its own ai chips since 2023 and still expects to spend heavily on nvidia and amd gpus. capital expenditures this year are projected between $125 billion and $145 billion, largely for ai infrastructure.
meta is not alone in seeking alternatives to nvidia. openai recently unveiled an inference processor built with broadcom, and anthropic is considering developing its own chips with samsung. amazon and google already make custom ai chips. meta also signed deals with arm, amd, and amazon for additional compute capacity. the company aims to deploy 7 gigawatts of compute this year and double that next year.
why it matters: custom ai chips can lower costs and reduce dependency on scarce gpus, which is critical for scaling ai infrastructure efficiently.
source: techcrunch ai: meta’s new ai chips will begin production in september