Google's Tensor G3 chip is focused on speeding up AI for the Pixel 8 phones

Another Pixel phone, another Tensor system-on-a-chip from Google. That's basically where we're at this year: The company officially announced the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro at its Made by Google event on Wednesday, and unsurprisingly they're sporting a new Tensor G3 SoC. The Tensor hardware made a big splash when it arrived with the Pixel 6, and now the company appears to be focusing on AI performance even more. 

Google claims the Tensor G3 allows the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro to run over twice as many machine learnings on device, compared to the Pixel 8. Similarly, the largest machine learning model on the Pixel 8 is said to be 10 times more complex than what was on the Pixel 6. Those leaps are a testament both to Google's engineering capabilities and how much tech companies are racing to become AI leaders.

The Tensor G3 chip is faster than the G2, as you'd expect, but honestly that's never been the highlight of Google's SoCs. What's more important are the new features it'll deliver. This year, that includes better Call Screen functionality for weeding out spam calls. Google also claims that Tensor G3 will enable better audio and video quality, especially for the Pixel's Clear Calling feature. You can also use the "Audio Magic Eraser" to remove annoying sounds from your videos, similar to the way the original Magic Eraser feature can clean up the backgrounds of photos.

Google can also bring screen reading to every corner of the Pixel 8 experience thanks to the Tensor G3. A long press on the power button automatically triggers screen reading, which is useful if you want to read a long article on the go. You'll also get playback controls for speed, as well as the ability to change the playback language.  

Google hasn't revealed many technical details behind the Tensor G3 yet, but according to a recent benchmark leak, it's built around a 9-core CPU with a Cortex-X3 core running at 2.91GHz. (That Arm core is also found in the recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, so Google is in good company.) The G3 also features 12GB of RAM and a Mali-G715 GPU. It should be far more efficient than the Tensor G2 as well, since it's built on Samsung's newer 4nm process.

To its credit, Google initially launched the Pixel phones with a focus on AI, which helped power groundbreaking features like Night Sight. Now with the Tensor G3 on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, Google can push its AI lead even further.

Follow all of the news live from Google’s 2023 Pixel event right here.

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