Google's upgraded TPU v9 'Triggerfish' chip to start production in 2027, with MediaTek as exclusive manufacturer

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Google is planning an upgraded version of its in-house AI chip, the TPU v9, codenamed 'Triggerfish,' with MediaTek as the exclusive manufacturer. This chip aims to address the 'CPU wall' and 'memory wall' issues faced by current AI ASICs. It's expected to start production by the end of 2027, ramp up by the end of 2028, with a lifecycle shipment of 1 to 2 million units, and a unit price about 30% higher than its predecessor, 'Humufish.'

The 'Triggerfish' features major upgrades: its on-chip SRAM cache is 2 to 3 times larger than 'Humufish,' helping keep larger active work sets local to the TPU, reducing data transfer overhead and improving decoding efficiency. The off-chip DRAM also gets an upgrade from HBM4 to the faster HBM4E. Plus, it introduces a 'simulation die,' which could be used for local TPU management, switching between training and inference, reinforcement learning, and AI agent collaboration.