Google possibly planning to build their own processors for Pixel phones and Chromebooks

If you want something done right, you need to do it yourself. That’s the common phrase we’ve heard many times before and whether it is true or not, it appears to be what many big tech companies are trying to do. We’ve seen companies like Apple design their own custom hardware for many years and now it appears that Google may also be developing a processor of its very own.

According to a new report by Axios, Google is working on a new chip, apparently codenamed “Whitechapel,” which may be an eight-core ARM processor built using Samsung’s 5-nanometer process. The processor could be optimised to run Google’s machine learning technology and may have a portion of the chip designated to improve Google Assistant’s performance.

Google already makes chips of its own for other functions in its devices. For instance, some of its Pixel phones have a security chip called the Titan M, while the Pixel 4 has a coprocessor called the Pixel Neural Core. However, their main processors on Pixel and Chromebooks are made by Qualcomm. Having a chipset that is more optimised to run with Google’s software could definitely improve its performance, but it could also be a major blow for Qualcomm who is the main processor for most Android devices outside of Huawei and Samsung. Having Google now venture into this space could make their chips and all other devices running Android seem less effective by comparison and make for an interesting conundrum.

Google has yet to officially confirm anything of this nature, although the report suggests that the company is quite far along in its plans and could have the chips ready to ship with devices from as early as next year. Hopefully, Google can still make their own chips and play nice without jeopardising the other Android and Chromebook manufacturers.

Last Updated: April 15, 2020