09 · Hardware & Infrastructure
ASIC
Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
A chip custom-built for one job. TPUs and Amazon's Trainium/Inferentia are AI ASICs.
Concrete example
Amazon trains models on its own Trainium ASICs to cut the Nvidia bill.
Why it matters
The chip-diversification story: cloud giants designing their own silicon to cut reliance on — and margins paid to — Nvidia.