AI chip · Google
Google TPU v4
Fourth-generation Tensor Processing Unit; optical-switch-networked pods, the foundation for PaLM / Gemini training through 2024. Fabricated by TSMC.
Deployed in 2 named data centers.
Market position
TPU v4 ran the PaLM and Gemini-Nano-generation training. Its 4,096-chip pod with optical circuit switching was Google's answer to InfiniBand fat-tree. Still deployed at The Dalles and Mayes County; superseded by v5p for new training workloads.
Efficiency and power
How much work you get per watt and per dollar, and how much power a full rack draws.
- Perf per watt
- 1.43 BF16 TFLOPS/W275 TFLOPS ÷ 192 W = 1.43
What fits in 32 GB
Which open-source LLMs run on one Google TPU v4, by precision. Weights only: add roughly 15% headroom for real serving. If a model does not fit at FP16, try INT8 or INT4 (smaller quality trade-off than most people expect).
| Model | Params | FP16 | INT8 | INT4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Llama 3.1 8B dense | 8 B | 16 GB ✓ | 8 GB ✓ | 4 GB ✓ |
| Llama 3.1 70B dense | 70 B | 140 GB ✗ | 70 GB ✗ | 35 GB ✗ |
| Llama 3.1 405B dense | 405 B | 810 GB ✗ | 405 GB ✗ | 203 GB ✗ |
| Llama 3.3 70B dense | 70 B | 140 GB ✗ | 70 GB ✗ | 35 GB ✗ |
| DeepSeek V3 MoE (671B total, 37B active per token) | 671 B | 1342 GB ✗ | 671 GB ✗ | 336 GB ✗ |
| DeepSeek R1 MoE (671B total, 37B active per token) | 671 B | 1342 GB ✗ | 671 GB ✗ | 336 GB ✗ |
| Qwen 2.5 7B dense | 7 B | 14 GB ✓ | 7 GB ✓ | 4 GB ✓ |
| Qwen 2.5 72B dense | 72 B | 144 GB ✗ | 72 GB ✗ | 36 GB ✗ |
| Mixtral 8x7B MoE (46.7B total, 12.9B active per token) | 46.7 B | 93 GB ✗ | 47 GB ✗ | 23 GB ✓ |
| Mixtral 8x22B MoE (141B total, 39B active per token) | 141 B | 282 GB ✗ | 141 GB ✗ | 71 GB ✗ |
| Gemma 2 27B dense | 27 B | 54 GB ✗ | 27 GB ✓ | 14 GB ✓ |
| Command R+ dense | 104 B | 208 GB ✗ | 104 GB ✗ | 52 GB ✗ |
| Kimi K2 MoE (1T total, 32B active per token) | 1000 B | 2000 GB ✗ | 1000 GB ✗ | 500 GB ✗ |
Math: FP16 = params × 2 bytes; INT8 = params × 1 byte; INT4 = params × 0.5 bytes. MoE models sum every expert (full weights on disk), not the per-token active subset.
Common questions
How much does Google TPU v4 cost?
Google TPU v4 doesn't have a public launch list price. Vendors like this one usually price through direct sales rather than a public sheet. See list price per TFLOP for chips that do publish.
How much memory does Google TPU v4 have?
32 GB of HBM2, running at 1,200 GB/s. Straight from the vendor datasheet. See chips with the most memory for context.
How much power does one Google TPU v4 draw?
192 W at the chip. A full server draws more once you add CPU, memory, networking and cooling: see the rack power number above. Compare to other chips on perf-per-watt.
Which data centers use Google TPU v4?
2 named data centers run them, including Google Pryor (MidAmerica) and Google The Dalles. See who has the most Google TPU v4 for the ranked list.
Which open-source LLMs fit on one Google TPU v4?
Of 13 open-source LLMs we track, 2 fit at FP16, 3 at INT8, and 4 at INT4 (for example Llama 3.1 8B, Qwen 2.5 7B and Mixtral 8x7B). Full table above with each model's memory need.
Key facts
- Class
- Compute SoC (AI accelerator)
- Designer
- Safety-critical?
- No (data-center inference / training)
- Record as of
- 2026-09-27
- Most recent source
- 2024-01-01 (across 2 sources on this page)
Specifications (9 fields, click to expand)
Straight from the vendor datasheet. Dense throughput shown first; sparse (2:4) numbers in parentheses where the vendor publishes them. Full datasheet linked below.
- Process node
- TSMC N7
- TDP
- 192 W
- Memory
- 32 GB HBM2
- Memory bandwidth
- 1,200 GB/s
- BF16 (dense)
- 275 TFLOPS
- INT8 (dense)
- 275 TOPS
- Form factor
- OAM (per-chip in v4 pod)
- Announced
- 2021-05-18
- Released
- 2022-05-01
Source: vendor datasheet
Generation
Foundry & process
- Fabbed at
- TSMC (all chips TSMC makes →)
- Process node
- TSMC N7
Compare with
Data centers running Google TPU v4
Who has the most? →Named data-center campuses with Google TPU v4 on site. Counts shown where the operator has published them; other rows are described in general terms.
- Google Pryor (MidAmerica) Data Center Campusas of 2024-01-01partially energizedreported
us-central2 TPU v4 pods (Google publishes region availability)
- Google The Dalles Data Center Campusas of 2024-01-01partially energizedreported
TPU v4 pods (major Google Cloud TPU region)
Sources
- Google TPU system architectureGoogle Cloud
Adoption rows appear as we confirm each chip-in-robot pairing from a public source. See every chip we track for the full catalog or the Google page.