A chip a buyer designs for itself, such as Google’s TPU, Amazon’s Trainium or Meta’s MTIA. It changes who designs the chip and who captures the margin, not which island makes it. Chapter 5.
From The AI Compute Race. Read the book
Where the book uses it
- Chapter 5 — The Island in Every Machine
Why every accelerator runs through Taiwan: the foundry, the packaging and the memory that are booked years ahead, and what that does to anyone arriving late with cash.
Related terms
From the glossary of The AI Compute Race.
How to cite this page
Dryburgh, Lee S. “Custom silicon.” In The AI Compute Race. DRYBURGH. https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/custom-silicon (accessed 2026-11-01).
BibTeX
@misc{dryburgh-custom-silicon-2026,
author = {Dryburgh, Lee S.},
title = {{Custom silicon}},
howpublished = {In \emph{The AI Compute Race}, DRYBURGH},
year = {2026},
url = {https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/custom-silicon},
note = {Accessed 2026-11-01}
}