Google推出新款AI晶片變體，雲端需求激增

11月9日（路透社）—— Alphabet旗下Google週一推出兩款自家張量處理器的新變體，在蓬勃發展的人工智慧晶片市場，加大挑戰輝達（Nvidia）主導地位的力道。Nov 9 (Reuters) - Alphabet's Google introduced two new variations of its in-house tensor processing units on Monday, stepping up its challenge to Nvidia's dominance in the booming market for artificial intelligence chips.

Alphabet股價在早盤交易上漲逾3%。Alphabet shares were up more than 3% in early trading.

Google的TPU主要一直供內部使用，支援Google搜尋（Search）、YouTube和Gemini等產品，但該公司也透過雲端業務向外提供這些晶片，以吸引企業AI客戶。Google's TPUs have primarily been used internally for products such as Search, YouTube and Gemini, but the company has been making the chips available through its cloud business to attract enterprise AI customers.

Alphabet表示，TPU銷售對9月季度業績作出實質貢獻，Google Cloud營收增逾一倍至307.1億美元。TPU sales made a meaningful contribution to results in the September quarter, according to Alphabet, with Google Cloud revenue more than doubling to $30.71 billion.

根據該公司，新晶片8tx和8i Max是既有處理器的重新設計版本，針對特定客戶需求量身打造。彭博新聞（Bloomberg News）當天稍早率先報導這項發展。The new chips, 8tx and 8i Max, are redesigned versions of existing processors tailored for specific customer needs, according to the company. Bloomberg News first reported the development earlier in the day.

8tx鎖定政府機關，以及受監管產業中需要在處理過程中保護敏感資料的企業。The 8tx is aimed at government agencies and companies in regulated industries that need to keep sensitive data protected while it is being processed.

該公司表示，8tx將Google晶片技術與超微（AMD）處理器結合，並在硬體層級加密資料，速度最高可達前一版本的兩倍，且幾乎不犧牲效能。It pairs Google's chip technology with AMD's processors and encrypts data at the hardware level, delivering up to twice the speed of the previous version with virtually no trade-off in performance, the company said.

另一方面，8i Max則是為需要一次處理極大量資訊的AI應用而設計。The 8i Max, meanwhile, is designed for AI applications that need to process very large amounts of information at once.

該公司表示，它把兩顆晶片整合在單一封裝中，以提供更多記憶體與運算能力，因此很適合用於程式碼助理、數學推理和藥物發現任務。It combines two chips into a single package to provide additional memory and computing power, the company said, making it well suited for coding assistants, mathematical reasoning and drug-discovery tasks.

（班加羅爾Anhata Rooprai報導；Jonathan Ananda編輯）(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda)