The Evolution and Impact of Tensor Processing Units in AI

In this episode of AI Basics, Jason sits down with Amin Vahdat, VP of ML at Google Cloud, to unpack the mind-blowing infrastructure behind modern AI. They dive into how Google’s TPUs power massive queries, why 2025 is the “Year of Inference,” and how startups can now build what once felt impossible. From real-time agents to exponential speed gains, this is a look inside the AI engine that’s rewriting the future.

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Timestamps:

(0:00) Jason introduces today’s guest Amin Vahdat

(3:18) Data movement implications for founders and historical bandwidth perspective

(5:29) The shift to inference and AI infrastructure trends in startups and enterprises

(8:40) Evolution of productivity and potential of low-code/no-code development

(11:20) AI infrastructure pricing, cost efficiency, and historical innovation

(17:53) Google's TPU technology and infrastructure scale

(23:21) Building AI agents for startup evaluation and supervised associate agents

(26:08) Documenting decisions for AI learning and early AI agent development

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Uncover more valuable insights from AI leaders in Google Cloud's 'Future of AI: Perspectives for Startups' report. Discover what 23 AI industry leaders think about the future of AI—and how it impacts your business. Read their perspectives here: https://goo.gle/futureofai

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Check out all of the Startup Basics episodes here: https://thisweekinstartups.com/basics

Check out Google Cloud: https://cloud.google.com/

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