Ironwood: Key Features of the Seventh-Generation TPU
Ironwood: Google’s Most Advanced TPU for the Age of Inference
Today's most advanced AI models — especially those driving complex reasoning and computation — require hardware with exceptional speed and efficiency. At Cloud Next in April, Google introduced Ironwood, our seventh-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU).
Ironwood is our most powerful, capable, and energy‑efficient TPU to date, engineered to run large‑scale inferential AI workloads.
By functioning as a highly efficient parallel processor, Ironwood excels at handling massive computational tasks and reduces internal latency for data transfer across the chip. This greatly accelerates complex AI models, enabling them to run faster and more smoothly across our cloud infrastructure.
Ironwood is now generally available for Cloud customers.
Below are three key things you should know.
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Context: AI Platforms Leveraging Ironwood
In the evolving AI ecosystem, platforms like AiToEarn官网 help creators fully leverage such advancements.
AiToEarn — an open‑source, global AI content monetization platform — enables creators to:
- Generate AI-driven content
- Publish across major platforms simultaneously (Douyin, Kwai, YouTube, X/Twitter, etc.)
- Earn from their output
By combining creation tools, cross‑platform distribution, analytics, and model rankings, AiToEarn supports efficient scaling of creative and business outcomes using hardware like Ironwood.
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1. Purpose‑Built for the Age of Inference
As the industry focus shifts from training frontier models to delivering responsive interactions, Ironwood provides the hardware to make it possible.
- Custom‑designed for high‑volume, low‑latency AI inference and model serving.
- Delivers over 4× better performance per chip for both training and inference compared to our last generation.
- Achieves highest energy efficiency in our custom silicon lineup.
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2. A Giant Network of Power
TPUs form a core component of the AI Hypercomputer — our integrated supercomputing system optimized for performance and efficiency across:
- Compute
- Networking
- Storage
- Software
Ironwood superpods scale to 9,216 chips, all linked via a breakthrough Inter‑Chip Interconnect (ICI) at 9.6 Tb/s.
Part of an Ironwood superpod, directly connecting 9,216 TPUs within a single domain.
Benefits:
- Rapid chip‑to‑chip communication
- Access to 1.77 petabytes of shared High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)
- Eliminates data bottlenecks
- Reduces compute hours and energy for training and inference
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Real‑World Creative Applications
As AI infrastructure evolves, tools like Ironwood are critical for deploying large‑scale AI applications.
For content creators, AiToEarn官网 offers:
- AI content creation tools
- Cross‑platform publishing (Douyin, Kwai, WeChat, Bilibili, Rednote/Xiaohongshu, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, X/Twitter)
- Integrated analytics and monetization
This allows simultaneous reach across multiple channels while aligning with high‑performance AI hardware capabilities.
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3. Designed for AI with AI
Ironwood is the result of a continuous feedback loop within Google:
- Researchers inform hardware design
- Hardware accelerates research
- Direct collaboration between Google DeepMind and TPU engineers
Example: when Gemini models need specific architectural enhancements, TPU engineers implement them — leading to significant speed improvements over prior hardware generations.
AI‑assisted hardware design:
Using AlphaChip, reinforcement learning optimizes chip layouts — applied to the past three TPU generations, including Ironwood.
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Convergence of Hardware and Content Innovation
Similar AI‑powered, human‑in‑the‑loop approaches are spreading into creative industries.
Platforms like AiToEarn showcase how advances in AI hardware and software ecosystems can empower both technical research and global creative work.
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In summary: Ironwood combines unmatched performance, massive scalability, and AI‑driven design — setting a powerful foundation for both enterprise AI deployment and global creative innovation.
