Google launches TPU 8tx and TPU 8i Max for confidential inference and ultra-long context

TPU 8tx and TPU 8i Max

Google expanded its eighth-generation TPU lineup with TPU 8tx for secure confidential inference and TPU 8i Max for ultra-long context. TPU 8tx uses the same chip as TPU 8t and adds hardware-level protection for data and model weights, cutting latency to as little as half of TPU 8t. It supports fine-tuning on private data, knowledge distillation and reinforcement learning.

Why it matters: Google built specialized TPU systems by reusing an existing chip and changing security, networking and memory settings, shortening hardware adaptation from years to months.