By Mark LaPedus
Google has entered into an investment and product development deal with Marvell Technology.
The deal may include a major AI ASIC design agreement for Google’s upcoming LPU, or language processing unit, for AI inference applications.
As part of the agreement, Marvell, based in Santa Clara, Calif., issued to Google a warrant to purchase up to an aggregate of 58,970,907 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $206.58 per share, according to a filing. The deal enables Google the right to purchase up to $12.2 billion shares, or a 7.7% stake, in Marvell.
In addition, Marvell and Google have entered into an agreement relating to the development of custom semiconductor products to Google.
“The expanded partnership spans a comprehensive range of custom silicon programs that attach to the TPU ecosystem, including AI inference accelerators, storage controllers, network interface controllers, memory interface controllers, and near-memory compute,” according to the filing.
Marvell provides custom ASIC design and development services for several companies, including Amazon and Microsoft.
Now, Google is in the mix. The Marvell-Google deal may also involve the design and development of Google’s LPU, codenamed Merope. “We believe the agreement includes LPU (Merope), which we previously sized at $20-25B of revenues in '28-'29, while also expanding the opportunity to a broader set of custom silicon programs through F33,” said John Vinh, an analyst with KeyBanc Capital Markets, in a research note.
If Marvell won that business, the deal could be seen as a setback for Broadcom. Broadcom co-designs AI chips for several notable companies, including Google.