Google and Intel have expanded their multiyear partnership, with Intel supplying its Xeon processors for use by Google Cloud. These include the company's latest Xeon 6 chips, which will be used for AI, cloud, and inference tasks. The collaboration also involves co-developing custom infrastructure processing units (IPUs) to offload data center tasks from CPUs.

This partnership, initiated in 2021, aims to focus on custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)-based IPUs, with Intel declining to comment on pricing for the deal. The move comes as the industry faces a growing CPU shortage, making these processors more critical than ever.

According to Intel's chief executive Lip-Bu Tan, 'AI is reshaping how infrastructure is built and scaled.' He added that CPUs and IPUs are central to delivering performance, efficiency, and flexibility demanded by modern AI workloads. This shift towards CPUs reflects a broader trend in the tech industry, with companies like Arm Holdings also stepping up to address the shortage.

The collaboration between Google and Intel highlights the ongoing race to meet the growing demands of artificial intelligence, from developing models to running them on cloud infrastructure. With more focus on CPUs, the future might see these chips becoming as ubiquitous in tech as GPUs are today.