Google Cloud has launched its latest custom-built processors, the Google Axion Processors.
These processors are an innovative enhancement in data centre computing, built with industry-leading performance, energy efficiency, and advanced capabilities for Google Cloud customers.
Google Axion Processors were built with a focus on addressing challenges such as information retrieval, global video distribution, and generative AI.
Google has invested heavily in custom silicon technology and the Axion Processors are designed specifically for the data centre.
Axion Processors are the latest addition to Google’s portfolio of custom silicon solutions, which includes Tensor Processing Units (TPU) and Video Coding Units (VCU).
These processors are built on the Arm Neoverse V2 CPU architecture, delivering commendable performance for a wide range of workloads, including web and app servers, containerized microservices, open-source databases, and CPU-based AI training.
What sets Axion apart is its outstanding performance and energy efficiency. Google says that Axion processors offer up to 30% better performance than existing Arm-based instances in the cloud, and up to 50% better performance and 60% better energy efficiency than comparable x86-based instances.
This improvement in performance and efficiency will bolster the capabilities of Google Cloud customers, enabling them to achieve new levels of performance, reduce infrastructure costs, and meet sustainability goals.
Axion Processors are underpinned by Titanium, a system of purpose-built custom silicon microcontrollers and tiered scale-out offloads.
This architecture optimizes platform operations such as networking and security, ensuring enhanced performance and efficiency for customer workloads.
Additionally, Axion processors leverage Hyperdisk, a new block storage service that decouples performance from instance size, further enhancing efficiency and scalability.
Google’s collaboration with Arm and industry partners has been very important in the development of Axion Processors.
These processors are built on the standard Armv9 architecture and instruction set, ensuring out-of-the-box application compatibility and interoperability.
Google has contributed to the SystemReady Virtual Environment (VE), Arm’s hardware and firmware interoperability standard, making it easier for customers to deploy Arm workloads on Google Cloud with minimal code rewrites.
The announcement of Axion Processors has garnered excitement and anticipation from Google Cloud customers and partners worldwide.
Industry leaders such as Broadcom, CrowdStrike, Cybereason, Datadog, Elastic, OpenX, Snap, and WP Engine have affirmed optimism for testing Axion-based virtual machines and exploring the potential performance and sustainability gains.
While details about availability and pricing haven’t been disclosed yet, Axion is expected to be available to Google Cloud customers later this year.
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