Meta announces new processor generation focused on inference

Tapping their long-time partner Broadcom, Meta’s new in-house chips are built to scale from recommendation engines to advanced AI workflows.

The new generation Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) isn’t built to replace the chips sourced from AMD or Nvidia, but are intended to supplement them and achieve «the lowest possible price.»

MTIA-chips are taking a different tack on developing AI models, optimizing for inference — the process of answering AI queries — instead of training. Most chips are customized for training, which is more compute intensive, but the majority of a chip’s life is spent putting together answers in production.

— Chip designs are based on projected workloads, but by the time the hardware reaches production — often two years later — those workloads may have shifted substantially, Meta says in their press release.

The new chips «have either already been deployed or are scheduled for deployment in 2026 or 2027,» Meta says — and they don’t disclose just how many of these they are making.

Read more: Meta’s press release. Writeups on Reuters and CNBC.