Google Wins AI Distribution Race With Android And TPUs
interesting read: https://www.economist.com/business/2026/05/20/google-is-dethroning-openai-as-the-king-of-consumer-ai
Chubby♨️@kimmonismusI'm not sure if Google is winning the AI race. However, I think they're winning the AI distribution race, which is a different thing. 900M Gemini users is impressive on a slide. But a huge chunk of that is Android users who got a default app swap and Search users who got AI Overviews without opting in. But that doesnt mean its a bad thing. 9.7 trillion tokens/month two years ago. 480 trillion last year. 3.2 quadrillion now. That's a 7x jump in twelve months. To keep that going, Google plans to spend $190 billion on infrastructure this year. OpenAI has been trying to reach the 1b user milestone for some time now. For Google, on the other hand, it's a simpler game. Why? With billions of Android devices, and combined with Google and its AI mode, they have the ability to introduce everyone to AI, specifically Gemini, for free. How do they do it? TPUs! Google not only laid the foundation for modern LLMs with their 2017 paper "Attention is all you need," but also made a far-sighted decision back in 2012 to invest in TPUs - their own in-house chips that are particularly well-suited for machine learning tasks. Now in its eighth iteration, they even have two chips: one particularly good for inference, and one particularly good for training. This makes them more independent. Furthermore, they have a solid foundation that generates strong revenue and good profits, allowing them to subsidize AI usage for free, and without ads, unlike OpenAI (this is not a judgment, just a statement of fact). TPUs Therefore, Google has a very good chance of winning the game thanks to this outstanding starting position and free distribution. But to be fair: the game *is* far *from over*. However, the starting position is outstanding for Google. Image: The Economist article
i still have the feeling people still underestimate how much of a big w TPUs are for google
Chubby♨️@kimmonismusI'm not sure if Google is winning the AI race. However, I think they're winning the AI distribution race, which is a different thing. 900M Gemini users is impressive on a slide. But a huge chunk of that is Android users who got a default app swap and Search users who got AI Overviews without opting in. But that doesnt mean its a bad thing. 9.7 trillion tokens/month two years ago. 480 trillion last year. 3.2 quadrillion now. That's a 7x jump in twelve months. To keep that going, Google plans to spend $190 billion on infrastructure this year. OpenAI has been trying to reach the 1b user milestone for some time now. For Google, on the other hand, it's a simpler game. Why? With billions of Android devices, and combined with Google and its AI mode, they have the ability to introduce everyone to AI, specifically Gemini, for free. How do they do it? TPUs! Google not only laid the foundation for modern LLMs with their 2017 paper "Attention is all you need," but also made a far-sighted decision back in 2012 to invest in TPUs - their own in-house chips that are particularly well-suited for machine learning tasks. Now in its eighth iteration, they even have two chips: one particularly good for inference, and one particularly good for training. This makes them more independent. Furthermore, they have a solid foundation that generates strong revenue and good profits, allowing them to subsidize AI usage for free, and without ads, unlike OpenAI (this is not a judgment, just a statement of fact). TPUs Therefore, Google has a very good chance of winning the game thanks to this outstanding starting position and free distribution. But to be fair: the game *is* far *from over*. However, the starting position is outstanding for Google. Image: The Economist article
Correction on my earlier post: The 900M monthly active user figure shared at Google I/O refers strictly to the Gemini app (Android, iOS, Chrome side panel, http://gemini.google.com). It does not include AI Overviews, AI Mode in Search, or Gemini-powered features in Workspace or YouTube. Sorry for that mistake!
Chubby♨️@kimmonismusI'm not sure if Google is winning the AI race. However, I think they're winning the AI distribution race, which is a different thing. 900M Gemini users is impressive on a slide. But a huge chunk of that is Android users who got a default app swap and Search users who got AI Overviews without opting in. But that doesnt mean its a bad thing. 9.7 trillion tokens/month two years ago. 480 trillion last year. 3.2 quadrillion now. That's a 7x jump in twelve months. To keep that going, Google plans to spend $190 billion on infrastructure this year. OpenAI has been trying to reach the 1b user milestone for some time now. For Google, on the other hand, it's a simpler game. Why? With billions of Android devices, and combined with Google and its AI mode, they have the ability to introduce everyone to AI, specifically Gemini, for free. How do they do it? TPUs! Google not only laid the foundation for modern LLMs with their 2017 paper "Attention is all you need," but also made a far-sighted decision back in 2012 to invest in TPUs - their own in-house chips that are particularly well-suited for machine learning tasks. Now in its eighth iteration, they even have two chips: one particularly good for inference, and one particularly good for training. This makes them more independent. Furthermore, they have a solid foundation that generates strong revenue and good profits, allowing them to subsidize AI usage for free, and without ads, unlike OpenAI (this is not a judgment, just a statement of fact). TPUs Therefore, Google has a very good chance of winning the game thanks to this outstanding starting position and free distribution. But to be fair: the game *is* far *from over*. However, the starting position is outstanding for Google. Image: The Economist article