With the launch of its Gemini 3 Pro model, Google Cloud, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has taken a step ahead in the race for artificial intelligence by demonstrating two things: first, its ability to offer a model that rivals, or even surpasses, ChatGPT; second, that it has chips capable of standing up to Nvidia's GPUs. The dominance of the world's largest chip designer is clearly being challenged by Alphabet's rise. But behind this surge, another player deserves very special attention: Broadcom.

The chips everyone is talking about

At the heart of the buzz around Alphabet are the TPUs, Tensor Processing Units. These chips, designed to maximize inference power, are the result of a close collaboration between Google Cloud and Broadcom. For several years, Broadcom has been developing ultra-specialized semiconductors while Google has been setting out its requirements for future generations of models.

This partnership gave rise to the Ironwood TPUs, now at the center of market conversations. As we previously explained in our columns, these chips are seen as Broadcom's technological showcase, as they embody the spectacular progress made against Nvidia. Their success is all the more strategic as they could soon equip Meta's data centers, with the group reportedly considering spending several billion dollars to adopt these Google chips from 2027.

And Broadcom is not stopping there: the company has also signed a major deal with OpenAI, covering 10 gigawatts of a brand-new custom chip, designed in the spirit of Ironwood.

More than one string to its bow

Broadcom's strength does not lie solely in designing inference chips. The company is also a key player in inter-server connections, essential for linking and enabling communication within AI infrastructures. Its networking solutions play a crucial role in speed, transfer capacity and energy efficiency at a time when data volumes are exploding.

Broadcom also occupies a central place in monitoring and managing AI infrastructures since its acquisition of VMware, completed in November 2024. This strategic move now allows the group to operate at every level of AI architectures: chips, networks, virtualization, oversight.

Thanks to this cross-cutting presence, Broadcom is establishing itself as an indispensable player in the sector. In addition to its agreement with OpenAI, the group recently sealed a 10 billion dollar partnership with a client whose identity has not been disclosed, underscoring its growing clout in a rapidly transforming ecosystem.

While Alphabet shines under the spotlight, Broadcom is quietly building the technological foundations of this new era. In an industry where dominance depends as much on the power of models as on the efficiency of infrastructures, Broadcom's role is already central to the AI ecosystem.