Google launches its own Tensor chipset to power Pixel 6 phones

Google announced that it has made its own SoC for powering the AI and machine learning (ML) in the upcoming Pixel 6 series phones. Dubbed as Google Tensor chipset, both Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro will come with it. Google has been working for around four to five years to build its first Tensor chipset which CEO Sundar Pichai claims to have two decades of Google’s computing abilities.
The reason as to why Google made its own chipset is because the kind of AI features and processing it wants for videos and photos cannot be achieved by chipsets that are made available by Qualcomm, MediaTek and others. “AI is the future of our innovation work, but the problem is we’ve run into computing limitations that prevented us from fully pursuing our mission. So we set about building a technology platform built for mobile that enabled us to bring our most innovative AI and machine learning (ML) to our Pixel users,” Google said in an official blog post.
Google is aiming to provide a personalised experience with Pixel phones so that every Pixel device feels unique. Be the AI-enabled suggestions, features, colour themes, voice commands or photography, with the new Tensor chipset backed by AI and ML capabilities, Google hopes to provide a truly personalised smartphone.
“Tensor was built for how people use their phones today and how people will use them in the future. As more and more features are powered by AI and ML it’s not simply about adding more computing resources, it’s about using that ML to unlock specific experiences for our Pixel users,” it said.
With Tensor, Google claims to have improved speech recognition with better recognition of voice commands, translation, captioning and dictation. “The highlight of Tensor is that it can process Google’s most powerful AI and ML models directly on Pixel 6 phones. You’ll see a transformed experience for the camera Camera, speech recognition Speaking head in silhouette and many other Pixel 6 features,” Google explained.
Google also said that with the Tensor chipset, and Titan M2, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro “will have the most layers of hardware security in any phone.”