Google’s Smartest AI Chip Is Built to Think

🌟 Good morning,

Grab your coffee because Google just brewed something brilliant—a chip that doesn't just compute, it thinks. Ironwood, their newest AI brain, is out to redefine what speed and smarts mean in the cloud.

Your AI-fueled day starts now…..

SYNC PICKS
5 Tools to Automate

• Superify: A 24/7 proactive assistant that doesn't just answer your questions but anticipates your needs, ensuring everything in your business is handled properly — even things you didn't think of.

• chatWise: Turn your files, text, links and screenshots into an AI chatbot that others can learn from. With a click. The fastest way to make money from your content.

• HeroUI Chat: HeroUI Chat turns prompts or screenshots into beautiful, production ready React applications with AI.

• Quickads: World's only ad maker covering everything from concept to creation

• Tripo 3D: Create 3D models quickly from just one picture.

🦄 Startup Spotlight

Funding Roundup

• Blackbird grabs $50M to build a blockchain-powered restaurant loyalty network. Spark Capital led the round with Coinbase Ventures, Amex Ventures, and a16z joining in. The funds will fuel the launch of Blackbird Club a cross-restaurant points program—and expansion beyond NYC, SF, South Carolina and Charleston.

• Artisan secures $25M Series A to scale AI sales agents. Led by Glade Brook Capital with YC, HubSpot, and others, the round helps Artisan grow its AI SDR platform, Ava hit $5M ARR, and prep two new AI agents (Aaron & Aria). Despite the “Stop Hiring Humans” tagline, Artisan is adding 22 team members because even AI needs a human touch.

TODAY IN AI
It’s smartest AI chip yet

Google has introduced Ironwood, its seventh-generation TPU and the first designed specifically for inference—the real-time reasoning AI now demands. Debuted at Cloud Next 2025, Ironwood is Google Cloud’s most powerful, energy-efficient chip yet, purpose-built for large-scale AI models that think, not just respond.

Packed with performance muscle, Ironwood comes in two sizes: a 256-chip cluster and a massive 9,216-chip pod. When scaled to the max, it delivers a staggering 42.5 exaflops—24x more compute power than El Capitan, the world’s largest supercomputer. Each chip carries 192 GB of HBM, hits 4,614 TFLOPs, and leverages 7.2 Tbps of bandwidth to slash latency and boost memory access.

Ironwood is also deeply integrated with Google’s AI Hypercomputer architecture and its Pathways software stack—enabling developers to chain together hundreds of thousands of TPUs to run some of the most complex AI workloads. Think Gemini 2.5, AlphaFold, and other frontier models that demand parallelism, scale, and speed. It’s a chip built not just to compute, but to think, powered by a reimagined SparseCore for large-scale embeddings and recommendation tasks. It also boasts advanced liquid cooling and nearly 30x the power efficiency of Google’s first TPU.

With Ironwood, Google isn’t just pushing performance—it’s shaping the future of generative AI infrastructure, where models don’t just react, they infer, collaborate, and deliver insights at lightning speed. Coming to Google Cloud later this year, Ironwood is ready to fuel the next AI leap.

SYNC FAST

1. Reddit Answers, a conversational AI search tool using Google Gemini, launched in beta in December 2024. It offers curated summaries of comments and posts to enhance search relevance and speed. Despite mixed reviews, it aims to keep users engaged on Reddit, competing with other AI tools.

2. IBM is enhancing the 2025 Masters Tournament experience with new AI features on its WatsonX platform, including upgraded Hole Insights 2.0 for real-time shot analysis using 180,000+ past shots. Fans can now enjoy immersive 3D visuals and multi-stream viewing via the updated Apple Vision Pro Masters app. The move deepens IBM’s 30+ year partnership with Augusta, blending AI, data, and tradition for next-level fan engagement.

3. Google's Gemini Code Assist now features "agentic" abilities for complex programming tasks, such as app creation and code migration, in Android Studio. These AI agents use a Kanban board to plan, execute, and report progress. Developers should still review AI-generated code for potential bugs or vulnerabilities.

TECH SYNC
Quantum meets AI

The fusion of quantum and AI is no longer a theory—it just proved itself in the real world. In a landmark achievement, Chinese researchers have fine-tuned a billion-parameter AI model using a superconducting quantum computer—making it the first-ever real-world use of quantum computing to supercharge a large language model (LLM). The feat was accomplished using the 72-qubit Origin Wukong quantum system, which handled hundreds of tasks in parallel to assist in training.

The results? A 15% drop in training loss on a psychological counselling dataset and a leap in mathematical reasoning accuracy from 68% to 82%. That’s a serious performance boost and a major hint at how quantum might soon play a role in optimizing AI systems where classical computing struggles.

What makes this even more compelling is the hybrid model's “quantum engine” approach. Instead of replacing traditional AI, it amplifies its strengths—tackling complex reasoning and optimization with quantum muscle. Think of it as fitting your standard AI with a rocket booster.

With over 350,000 tasks completed and users from 139 countries already onboard since its January 2024 debut, the Wukong system is quietly turning into a global quantum AI lab. The future of large-scale AI might just be quantum-powered—and this experiment is our first real glimpse.

MORE TO KNOW

• Samsung’s SmartThings app now offers deeper home automation with upgraded “Routines,” new intercom features, and sleep tracking via Samsung Health integration. It also supports more smart devices under the new Matter 1.4 standard, including solar panels and heat pumps—aiming to boost cross-device usage across its ecosystem.

• Instagram is testing “locked reels” that require secret codes to unlock — offering creators a playful new way to share exclusive content with fans. Hints like “my birthday” or “1st # in the caption” help users crack the code, potentially boosting engagement and adding a layer of mystery to Reels.

• Ballie, Samsung’s home robot, just levelled up thanks to Gemini. Through a new partnership with Google Cloud, Ballie can now tap into Gemini’s multimodal smarts to answer voice and video-based queries. From outfit advice using its camera to personalized health tips, Ballie is set to become a walking, talking AI companion arriving in South Korea and the U.S. later this year.

• Microsoft is rolling out a bigger, better Start menu — and yes, you can finally disable that annoying “Recommended” feed. The redesigned menu is more spacious, lets you pin up to 8 apps per row, and keeps everything on a single scrollable page. It's already being tested in Windows 11 24H2 and even backported to 23H2, so your Start menu glow-up is just around the corner.