HIGHLIGHTS

• Google announced the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro on Monday.
• The new smartphones will come with custom Tensor chip.
• This marks a shift in strategy for Google.

Google on Monday night casually announced the new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, with its own Tensor chip, in probably its biggest push towards building a flagship-level smartphone so far. While Google has used custom hardware in products in the past, this is the first time it has come up with a custom-made chip for phones. The Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) is created by entirely by Google and will power the next-generation Pixel smartphone. As already confirmed by Google, the platform will focus on AI and Machine Learning (ML) to provide a better experience to Pixel users.

“We set about building a technology platform built for mobile that enabled us to bring our most innovative AI and machine learning (ML) to our Pixel users. We set out to make our own System on a Chip (SoC) to power Pixel 6. And now, years later, it’s almost here,” Google said in its blog post late Monday evening.

In the process, Google also ditches Qualcomm, which for long had powered its smartphones. The move is in line with what Apple has been doing with its mobiles and laptops. Google is also using the same Arm-based architecture which Apple used for its new M1 chips. The Arm processors consume less energy and are used for smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Qualcomm has said that it will continue to work with Google on the latter’s existing and future products but, the introduction of Tensor is definitely huge not just for Google but, for the entire smartphone industry.

Why Tensor is a big deal?

Google had introduced the Pixel smartphones in 2016 to compete with other premium players like Apple and Samsung. However, after the initial push it took a backseat and focused more on the affordability of its devices. This is the very reason why one of the biggest smartphone markets in the world (India) has seen only one Pixel smartphone in almost two years. And, we don’t know Google’s plans for Pixel 6 series for the Indian market yet.

But, the introduction of Tensor is certainly a shift in strategy from Google and shows that the tech giant is once again ready to compete with Apple and Samsung. A custom chip can play an important role in Google’s second attempt at building a flagship as it gives the company more control than before.

Google has already stated that Tensor will help Pixel smartphones to do real-time language translation for captions, text-to-speech without an internet connection, dual keyboard and voice input methods, and superior camera capabilities. You can expect other machine learning capabilities on the upcoming Pixel smartphones. And, they should definitely be faster than the previous generation devices.

“You’ll see this in everything from the completely revamped camera system to speech recognition and much more. So whether you’re trying to capture that family photo when your kids won’t stand still, or communicate with a relative in another language, Pixel will be there — and it will be more helpful than ever,” Google said.

Does it guarantee success?

No. There is a lot more Google will have to do to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung. It may have unveiled the new Pixel phones and given some details about Tensor, there is a lot of that is yet to be shared. We don’t know anything about the CPU or GPU on this chip. Google is yet to share any benchmarks for performance. And, it has not mentioned if the chip is 5G ready (even though it would be safe to assume that it is).

Google also mentioned that the new processor will bring improvements to the camera department. But again, didn’t reveal information around them. It didn’t even share any image samples. This will be particularly interesting to see because the Pixel phones are anyway known for their amazing image capturing capabilities. So, what else can possibly be added to the table!

All of this information will be shared later this year in October when the smartphones are officially launched. Google CEO Sundar Pichai noted that the Tensor chip has been four years in the making, and it will be interesting to see if it is actually ahead of the time or not!