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Meta in talks to spend billions on Google’s chips, The Information reports

Nov 25 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab is in talks with Google to spend billions of dollars on the Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab-owned company’s chips for use in its data centers starting from 2027, The Information reported, a move that would cast Google as a serious rival to semiconductor giant Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab.
The talks also involve Meta renting chips from Google Cloud as early as next year and are part of Google’s broader push to get customers to adopt its tensor processing units (TPUs) – used for AI workloads – in their own data centers, the report said, citing people involved in the talks.
The move would mark a departure from Google’s current strategy of using TPUs only in its own data centers and could sharply expand the market for its chips, putting the company in direct competition for the hundreds of billions being spent on data-center processors to power AI services.
Some Google Cloud executives have suggested the strategy could help it capture as much as 10% of Nvidia’s annual revenue, a slice worth billions of dollars, according to the report.

ALPHABET SHARES RISE, NVIDIA DECLINES

Alphabet shares rose more than 4% in premarket trading on Tuesday, putting it on course to hit a historic $4 trillion valuation if the gains hold. Broadcom (AVGO.O), opens new tab, which helps Google make its AI chips, gained 2%, while Nvidia fell 3.2%.
Clinching a chip deal with Meta, one of the biggest Nvidia customers with up to $72 billion planned in spending this year, would mark a major coup for Google — already one of the biggest winners of the generative AI boom thanks to a surge in demand for its cloud services from businesses adopting the technology.
Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters could not verify the report.
Demand has surged for custom chips such as TPUs in recent years as businesses look for alternatives to Nvidia’s pricey and supply-constrained graphics processors. Anthropic said last month it was expanding its Google deal to use up to one million of the tech giant’s AI chips, worth tens of billions of dollars.
Google has built momentum in recent months by drawing Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), opens new tab as an investor, turning its once-marginal cloud unit into a growth engine and earning strong early reviews for its latest Gemini 3 model. Renting Nvidia chips to customers is a big revenue source for its cloud unit.
Taking on Nvidia’s dominance would require Google to overcome nearly two decades of proprietary Nvidia code that has made the company’s ecosystem hard to dislodge. More than 4 million developers worldwide rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other applications.
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Nvidia dominance spurs tech firms to explore designing their own chips

For decades, tech companies outsourced the development of semiconductors to specialists like Nvidia because it was cheaper and more efficient.

But the rise of AI has changed that calculation, and giants like Alphabet, Amazon.com, Microsoft and Meta Platforms are stepping up their in-house silicon efforts.

There is some logic to the strategy. Nvidia’s dominance in cutting-edge graphics processor units (GPUs), which are vital to training AI models, has made tech companies nervous about relying on a single supplier for such a critical component.

Nvidia’s near-monopoly gives it enormous pricing power, too. Its data center division is forecast to earn a 74% gross profit margin on $187 billion of sales in the year to January 2026, per Visible Alpha.

Apple could be an example for tech giants exploring their own chips. The iPhone maker in 2010 launched the iPhone 4 containing its own chips.

Read the full commentary here.

Follow Robyn Mak on X.

Reuters Breakingviews is the world’s leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time.

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French prosecutor opens probe on Ebay over suspicion of sale of illicit goods

The French prosecutor’s office on Tuesday said it had opened an investigation on U.S. E-commerce giant eBay (EBAY.O), opens new tab on suspicion of the sale of illicit goods on its marketplace, confirming an earlier report from newspaper Le Parisien.
The prosecutor’s office opened the investigation after consumer watchdog DGCCRF had said two weeks ago it had found illicit goods on eBay’s market place and other e-commerce portals.
EBay did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reporting by Alessandro Parodi and Inti Landauro; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta

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Taiwan says ‘no information’ on cooperation with South Korea on US chip tariffs

Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai said on Tuesday he had “no information” about any cooperation with South Korea on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on semiconductors, adding that Taiwan was conducting talks only with the United States.
South Korea’s trade minister said on Monday he saw room for cooperation with Taiwan on Trump’s tariffs on chips. U.S. officials are privately saying they might not levy long-promised semiconductor tariffs soon, potentially delaying a centerpiece of Trump’s economic agenda, Reuters reported last week.
“There is no such information (about cooperation with South Korea), but we have taken note of this kind of news,” Cho told lawmakers in parliament in Taipei.
Taiwan’s trade negotiators are only conducting one-on-one talks with the United States at present, he said, adding that he hoped Taiwan’s industrial supply chain could cooperate more with countries around the world that are complementary to Taiwan.
Taiwan’s exports to the United States are currently subject to a 20% tariff, which the government is in talks to reduce, though the tariffs do not apply to semiconductors.
Cho said there is relatively more “benign” competition between Taiwan and South Korea in high-tech fields as well as in chip manufacturing and other advanced processes.
Taiwan is home to TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, while major South Korean chipmakers include Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), opens new tab and SK Hynix (000660.KS)