Silicon saga: From CPU to XPU, challengers chip in

Three years after Nvidia cemented its dominance in AI chips, the company still controls around 80% of the market, with valuations signaling its grip could last at least another 10 years. Yet tech titans like Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai are already showing early signs of lowering that dependence by building their own custom silicon.

The market calls these AI chips XPUs – a catch-all processor that isn’t just tied to graphics (like GPUs) or traditional compute (like CPUs), but can suit custom needs like training, inference, networking,…