Google has just unveiled its latest and most powerful AI accelerator yet, the Ironwood, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Announced at the Google Cloud Next ’25 event in Las Vegas, Ironwood is the company’s seventh-generation TPU, specifically designed to tackle the complex challenges of AI inference.
A New Era in AI Inference
Ironwood represents a pivotal shift in AI computing, moving beyond responsive AI models that merely provide real-time information to proactive models that can interpret and generate insights autonomously. This transition is what Google terms the “age of inference,” where AI is no longer just about processing data but about generating meaningful insights and actions from that data.
Unmatched Computing Power
At the heart of Ironwood is an unprecedented level of computing power. Each individual chip can deliver a peak compute of 4,614 teraflops, and when scaled up to a 9,216-chip configuration, the total compute capacity reaches a staggering 42.5 exaflops. To put this into perspective, this is more than 24 times the compute power of El Capitan, the world’s current largest supercomputer, although it’s important to note that this comparison is based on different precision calculations (FP8 vs. FP64).
Enhanced Memory and Bandwidth
Ironwood boasts significant advancements in memory and bandwidth. Each chip comes with 192GB of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a six-fold increase over its predecessor, Trillium. The HBM bandwidth has been ramped up to 7.2 TBps, which is 4.5 times greater than Trillium. This substantial increase in memory and bandwidth ensures that Ironwood can handle large AI models and datasets with ease, reducing data transfers and enhancing overall performance.
Power Efficiency and Specialized Cores
Amin Vahdat, VP and GM of ML Systems and Cloud at Google, highlighted that Ironwood is nearly 30 times more power-efficient than the first cloud TPU from 2018 and almost twice as efficient as Trillium. This efficiency is crucial in an era where power constraints are a major concern for delivering AI capabilities. Ironwood also features an enhanced specialized core called SparseCore, designed to process the types of data common in advanced ranking and recommendation workloads, further optimizing its performance.
Scalability and Network Advancements
Ironwood is available in two configurations: a 256-chip cluster and a 9,216-chip cluster, both of which can be scaled up using Google’s Pathways software stack. This allows developers to harness the combined power of tens of thousands of Ironwood TPUs, making it ideal for large language models, Mixture of Experts (MoEs), and advanced reasoning tasks. The Inter-Chip Interconnect (ICI) network has also been enhanced, offering 1.2 Tbps bidirectional bandwidth, which is 1.5 times greater than Trillium, facilitating faster and more efficient communication between chips.
Integration with AI Hypercomputer and Enhanced Networking
Ironwood is set to be integrated with Google’s AI Hypercomputer, a modular computing cluster designed to optimize hardware and software for AI workloads. Additionally, Google has introduced new networking advancements, including a 400G Cloud Interconnect and Cross-Cloud Interconnect, offering up to four times more bandwidth than the previous 100G connections. This enhanced networking, along with innovations like Hyperdisk Exapool and Cloud Storage zonal buckets, ensures ultra-low latency and high performance for AI workloads.
Practical Applications and Future Implications
The launch of Ironwood opens up a plethora of opportunities for AI practitioners and developers. With its ability to handle massive AI models and datasets, Ironwood is poised to revolutionize fields such as financial analytics, scientific research, and consumer recommendations. The question now is how users will leverage this immense power to create innovative AI applications that drive real-world impact.
As Google continues to push the boundaries of AI computing, Ironwood stands as a testament to the company’s commitment to advancing the frontiers of what is possible in scale and efficiency. Whether you’re a developer looking to deploy large-scale AI models or an enterprise seeking to optimize your AI workloads, Ironwood is set to be a game-changer in the world of artificial intelligence.