Google Elevates AI Infrastructure Chief Amin Vahdat as AI Arms Race Intensifies
Google has made a major move in the global AI arms race, promoting Amin Vahdat to the newly created position of chief technologist for AI infrastructure. Reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai, Vahdat’s elevation signals the growing importance of AI infrastructure as Alphabet ramps up capital expenditures to nearly $93 billion by the end of 2025—a figure expected to rise even further next year.
Vahdat is no stranger to large-scale computing. The UC Berkeley-trained computer scientist began his career as a research intern at Xerox PARC in the early 1990s and has spent the past 15 years quietly building Google’s AI backbone. Before joining Google in 2010, he was a professor at Duke University and UC San Diego, with an academic portfolio of nearly 400 published papers focused on optimizing computer efficiency at massive scale.
Vahdat has maintained a high-profile presence at Google. At Google Cloud Next just eight months ago, he unveiled the company’s seventh-generation TPU, Ironwood, delivering an astonishing 42.5 exaflops of compute per pod—more than 24 times the power of the world’s top supercomputer at the time. “Demand for AI compute has increased by a factor of 100 million in just eight years,” he told attendees, underscoring the rapid acceleration of AI needs.
Behind the scenes, Vahdat oversees the crucial infrastructure that keeps Google competitive. He manages the creation of custom TPU chips, the Jupiter network that moves massive amounts of data across servers at speeds up to 13 petabits per second, and Google’s Borg software, which coordinates workloads across data centers. He also led the development of Axion, Google’s first custom Arm-based CPUs for data centers, reinforcing the company’s edge in AI technology.
Google’s promotion of Vahdat is also a strategic move for talent retention in a fiercely competitive AI landscape. With AI experts in high demand and commanding record compensation, elevating someone who has been instrumental in shaping Google’s AI strategy ensures the company keeps one of its most critical leaders in place. In short, Vahdat is at the heart of Google’s AI ambitions, driving both innovation and infrastructure at unprecedented scale.
source: techcrunch