Marvell Technology (MRVL) shares rose 6.3 percent during trading on April 20, 2026, following reports that Alphabet’s Google is in discussions with the semiconductor firm to co-develop two new custom artificial intelligence chips. According to a report from The Information, the collaboration is aimed at producing specialized silicon to enhance the efficiency of Google’s AI infrastructure as the company scales its machine learning capabilities. The news follows a period of significant momentum for Marvell, which has seen its shares climb approximately 60 percent year-to-date.
The proposed partnership involves two distinct chip designs. The first is a memory processing unit (MPU) intended to operate alongside Google’s existing Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to alleviate data movement bottlenecks that can constrain performance in large-scale AI models. The second design is a new TPU architecture specifically optimized for AI inference, the process of running trained models in real-world applications. Sources cited in the report indicate that the companies aim to finalize the design of the memory processing unit as early as 2027 before moving into test production.
This development underscores the rapid expansion of Marvell’s custom compute business, which has grown from negligible revenue to approximately $1.5 billion. Marvell management, led by Chief Executive Officer Matt Murphy, has previously stated expectations for this segment to double by fiscal 2028. The company’s data center revenue reached $6 billion in fiscal 2026, and the firm recently raised its full-year fiscal 2027 outlook to nearly $11 billion. To support its AI infrastructure goals, Marvell has recently completed strategic acquisitions, including the $5.5 billion purchase of Celestial AI, which provided the company with advanced photonic interconnect technology.
For Google, the reported talks represent a strategic diversification of its custom silicon supply chain. While Google has maintained a long-term partnership with Broadcom for its TPU development—recently extending that agreement through 2031—the addition of Marvell as a third design partner alongside MediaTek suggests a multi-vendor approach. This strategy is intended to reduce dependence on third-party hardware providers and to optimize costs for specific workloads. Google recently debuted its seventh-generation TPU, codenamed Ironwood, which the company described as its first processor specifically designed for the age of inference.
As of the close of trading on April 20, 2026, neither Marvell nor Google has issued an official statement confirming the details of the discussions. However, the news comes amid a broader surge in the custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) market, which is projected to grow 45 percent in 2026 to reach a total value of $118 billion by 2033. Marvell’s current market capitalization stands at approximately $122.15 billion, with the company continuing to position itself as a primary provider of the specialized networking and compute hardware required to support generative AI platforms.