ASIC · Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
A chip hard-wired for one task; AI ASICs trade flexibility for efficiency versus general-purpose GPUs.
Current numbers
~9 monthstape-out time for OpenAI/Broadcom 'Jalapeño' inference ASIC; deploy from late 2026
27.8% forecast for 2026ASIC share of AI server shipments in 2026 (highest since 2023); custom-ASIC units +~45% YoY
192 GB / 7.4 TB/sHBM3E per Ironwood TPU v7 (inference-era ASIC); 9,216-chip pods, 42.5 FP8 ExaFLOPS, 4,614 FP8 TFLOPS/chip