Here’s why tech behemoths are racing to develop their own chips.

The following are a few of the reasons why tech behemoths are racing to develop their own chips.

According to reports and company announcements, companies such as Baidu, Tesla, and Apple are foregoing established chip firms in favour of developing their own chips in-house.

At the moment, none of the tech behemoths intend to develop all of their own chips.

TSMC’s chip factory in Taiwan, for example, costs $10 billion and takes several years to build.

In this article, CEO Sundar Pichai discusses third-generation AI chips.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, discusses the company’s third-generation artificial intelligence.

According to reports and company announcements, companies such as Baidu, Tesla, and Apple are foregoing established chip firms in favour of developing their own chips in-house.

Accenture’s global semiconductor lead, Syed Alam, told CNBC that companies are increasingly preferring custom-made chips that meet the specific requirements of their applications over generic chips used by competitors. ‘This gives them more control over the software and hardware integration,’ Alam explains.

Custom designed chips

Custom-designed chips, for example, can perform better and be less expensive, according to Russ Shaw, a former non-executive director at Dialog Semiconductor in the United Kingdom.

“Everything from smartphones to cloud services can be more energy efficient with the help of these chips,” according to the chip’s unique design.

According to Glenn O’Donnell, research director at analyst firm Forrester Research, another reason why big tech companies are reconsidering where they get their chips is the global chip shortage. Without a doubt, the pandemic threw a wrench in the works, prompting people to start making their own.

“Many felt constrained due to chipmaker timelines,” says O’Donnell, when it comes to the pace of innovation.

Aside from AI chips

Every month, a major technology company announces a new chip project.

As an example, Apple announced in November 2020 that it was abandoning Intel’s x86 architecture in favour of developing its own M1 processor, which is now found in new iMacs and iPads.

Tesla recently announced the development of a “Dojo” chip, which it calls the “Dojo,” to train artificial intelligence networks in data centres. Beginning in 2019, the automaker will produce vehicles with its own AI chips, which will aid on-board software in making decisions.