More importantly, Google plans to make the AI hardware available to outside companies through the Google Cloud. The real purpose of the Cloud TPU appears to be focused on making the Google Cloud more competitive over cloud competitors Amazon and Microsoft. The Santa Clara, California-based company dominates the still-young market, but Cloud TPUs offer AI developers a competing architecture to tinker around with. Here are two major reasons why Google will have a hard time competing in the AI hardware world. Google Cloud lock-inFirst, Cloud TPUs keep users locked into Google's AI framework, called TensorFlow, and locked into the Google Cloud.

Source: Forbes May 25, 2017 12:56 UTC