GCP getting second tier TPU allocation b/c TPU cannot be enough to meet GDM needs. At this point, it would be very stupid for external customers betting on TPUs (I am looking at Apple).

Why would it be stupid?

> second tier TPU allocation

What exactly does this mean?

Probably that there are already several generations of TPU hardware - the best ones go to internal use, while the older hardware gets rented out to gcp to amortize the development costs.

That's correct. Unless Zuck is OK with using one-generation older TPU, which is a possibility.

Could be other way round too. Meta wants to use their own data centers capacity for their custom AI solutions. Generic compute and storage for online and batch workloads can be moved to Google cloud infra.

Yep definitely could be

Also, AI training can be centralized but user serving benefits from being close to the user. So Meta might be building huge new data centers for AI training and centralized analytics etc, while using plenty of DCs owned by others around the globe to run their apps.

Assuming they don’t screw it up. Google has a ton of great stuff but when it comes to actually making into a product they flounder. GCP still needs a lot of work.

What more of a product do you need than being able to boot a machine with a TPU strapped on at relative low cost?

GCP did that by firing senior support people and replacing them with more junior, offshore ones.

Seems likely because the article says "Meta’s deal with Google is mainly around artificial intelligence infrastructure, said one of the people".