Google builds custom AI chip for Gemini as investors react

Google isn’t just building AI models anymore. It’s building the silicon to run them.

Alphabet is developing a custom server chip codenamed “Frozen v2” specifically optimized for its Gemini AI models, with a target launch date of 2028. The chip is designed to generate 6 to 10 times more tokens per unit of power than Google’s latest Tensor Processing Units.

Investors noticed. Alphabet shares climbed approximately 3% following the report, a clear signal that Wall Street sees custom silicon as more than a vanity project.

The economics of rolling your own chips

Frozen v2 is what the industry calls an ASIC, an application-specific integrated circuit. Think of it like this: Nvidia’s GPUs are Swiss Army knives, versatile and capable of handling lots of different tasks. An ASIC is a scalpel, designed to do one thing extraordinarily well. In Google’s case, that one thing is running Gemini inference workloads as cheaply and quickly as possible.