- Google’s AI VP and company CEO warn of an “intense” year ahead
- The company wants to double AI serving capacity every six months
- Reducing reliance on third parties could help solve some cost and efficiency concerns
Google’s AI and Infrastructure VP, Amin Vahdat, has reportedly warned employees that the company must double serving capacity every six months in order to keep up with demand for AI tools.
CNBC reported the news hit staff in a company all-hands, during which Vahdat revealed that Google would need to scale “the next 1000x in 4-5 years.”
Vahdat noted all of this was needed while maintaining the same cost and power consumption, spelling out a challenging future of both colossal capacity increases and equally mighty efficienty improvements.
Google needs to double AI progress every six months
Vahdat explained the 1000x scale, targeted for around the end of the decade, would need to come at “essentially the same cost and increasingly, the same power, the same energy level.”
Clearly, the roadmap consists of multiple elements. Google continues to work on expanding its infrastructure, like AI and cloud data centers, but it’s also rolling out more of its own hardware (like TPUs) to reduce reliance on third-party companies. Nvidia has profited hugely from that, for instance.
Google’s seventh-generation TPU, Ironwood, claims a 30x power efficiency boost over 2018 models.
And on those third-party concerns, many Nvidia chips are being flagged as ‘sold out,’ per The Verge, which has slowed down some rollouts across the industry, including Google’s own AI features.
Separately, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has also warned 2026 would be “intense” due to AI competition and compute demand. Google has publicly acknowledged AI bubble concerns, but Pichai deems underinvesting in AI even riskier.
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