Built with Samsung, Blow to Qualcomm, Top iPhone Rival

We’ve known for a while that Google is looking into building its very own chips to power the Pixel line of phones, but according to a new report, the company has made huge progress in this project.

The new chip, which is internally referred to as Whitechapel, according to a report from Axios, was already designed in collaboration with Samsung on a 5 nanometer platform

By the looks of things, what Google is aiming with its own processor is to embrace an approach similar to Apple, who also builds iPhone chips in-house. As a result, a Pixel equipped with a Google-made chip could become an even bigger rival to the iPhone, as the Mountain View-based search giant would get better control over the performance and power efficiency of the processor.

But at the same time, Google investing in its own chip would also represent a significant loss of Qualcomm, which currently suppliers mobile processors to a big share of the mobile industry, including Samsung (which also makes its own chips known as Exynos).

First Pixel with a Google chip in 2021

The project, however, has advanced so fast that Google has already received the first chips to power the Pixel, but this doesn’t necessarily mean the search company is ready to bring it to a production model.

Google wants to spend more time conducting in-house testing, so the next-generation Pixel expected later this year is unlikely to be powered by this new processor. Instead, the aforementioned source says the Google-made chip is expected to be used on the 2021 Pixel.

At the same time, Google wants to expand the chip project to also include Chromebooks, albeit for the time being, no ETA on when this is supposed to happen are available.

Google will also optimize the processor for other uses, including machine-learning technology, so it could end up powering other devices as well, including some based on Google Assistant.