Google unveils custom Arm-based chips, following similar efforts at rivals Amazon and Microsoft

Google
is
trying
to
make
cloud
computing
more
affordable
with
a
custom-built


Arm-based
server
chip.
At
its
Cloud
Next
conference
in
Las
Vegas
on
Tuesday,
the
company
said
the
new
processor
will
become
available
later
in
2024.

With
the
new
Arm-based
chip,
Google
is
playing
catch-up
with
rivals
such
as
Amazon
and
Microsoft,
which
have
been
employing
a
similar
strategy
for
years.
The
tech
giants
compete
fiercely
in
the
growing
market
for
cloud
infrastructure,
where
organizations
rent
out
resources
in
faraway
data
centers
and
pay
based
on
usage.

Google
parent
Alphabet
still
derives
three-quarters
of
revenue
from
advertising,
but
cloud
is
growing
faster
and
now
represents
almost
11%
of
company
revenue.
The
segment,
which
contains
corporate
productivity
applications,
is

also
profitable.
Google
held
7.5%
of
the
cloud
infrastructure
market
in
2022,
while
Amazon
and
Microsoft
together
controlled
around
62%,
according
to
Gartner

estimates.

Market
leader


Amazon
Web
Services

introduced
its
Graviton
Arm
chip
in
2018. “Almost
all
their
services
are
already
ported
and
optimized
on
the
Arm
ecosystem,”
Chirag
Dekate,
an
analyst
at
technology
industry
researcher
Gartner,
told
CNBC
in
an
interview.
Graviton
has
picked
up
business
from
Datadog,
Elastic,
Snowflake
and
Sprinklr,
among
others.

Alibaba
announced
Arm
processors
in
2021,
and


Microsoft
did
the
same

in
November.

Arm
isn’t
completely
new
to
Google,
which
started
selling
access
to
virtual
machines,
or
VMs,
that
use


Oracle-backed
startup
Ampere’s
Arm-based
chips
in
2022.

Porting
applications
to
Arm
machines
has
made
sense
for
organizations
seeking
to
reduce
spending
on
cloud
computing
because
of
economic
worries.
When
Arm
Holdings

filed
to
go
public
last
year,
it
pointed
to
Amazon’s
claim
that
Graviton
could
give
up
to
40%
better
price
performance
than
comparable
server
instances,
such
as
the
common “x86”
model
used
by


AMD
and


Intel
processors.

Google
has
used
Arm-based
server
computers
for
internal
purposes
to
run
YouTube
advertising,
the
BigTable
and
Spanner
databases,
and
the
BigQuery
data
analytics
tool.
The
company
will
gradually
move
them
over
to
the
cloud-based
Arm
instances,
which
are
named
Axion,
when
they
become
available,
a
spokesperson
said.

Datadog
and
Elastic
plan
to
adopt
Axion,
along
with
OpenX
and
Snap,
the
spokesperson
said.

Broader
use
of
chips
drawing
on
Arm’s
architecture
might
lead
to
lower
carbon
emissions
for
certain
workloads.
Virtual
slices
of
physical
servers
containing
the
Axion
chips
deliver
60%
more
energy
efficiency
than
comparable
VMs
based
on
the
x86
model,
Google
cloud
chief
Thomas
Kurian
wrote
in
a

blog
post.
Arm
chips,
which
are
popular
in
smartphones,
offer
a
shorter
set
of
instructions
than
x86
chips,
which
are
commonly
found
in
PCs.

The
chips
can
also
speed
up
applications.

Axion
offers
30%
better
performance
than
the
fastest
general-purpose
Arm-based
virtual
machines
in
the
cloud
and
50%
better
performance
than
comparable
VMs
based
on
x86,
Google
said.

“I
think
it
completes
their
portfolio,”
Dekate
said.

Correction:
The
Cloud
Next
conference
is
on
Tuesday.
An
earlier
version
misstated
the
day.