Waymo Builds Its Own Chip to Make Robotaxis Safer and Cheaper

Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Google's parent Alphabet, just revealed it designed its own computer chip to run its robotaxis. This chip, built with Taiwan's TSMC, acts like a super-fast data organizer. It takes in information from 13 cameras, four lidars, and radar—essentially the car's eyes and ears—and cleans up that data so the car's main brain can make driving decisions in milliseconds. This means your future ride feels smoother, especially at night or in bad weather.

Why build a custom chip instead of buying one? Think of it like a chef designing their own kitchen knives instead of using whatever's on sale. By making chips specifically for driving, Waymo gets faster reflexes and better safety backups. The system is built to handle vibrations, extreme heat and cold, and it runs two computers in parallel—if one fails, the other takes over instantly. Since there's no human driver to help, the car must be extra reliable, and these chips are built for that.

Waymo already gives about 500,000 paid rides every week in cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. With its own chips, the company can cut costs and control volume, which helps it bring robotaxis to more cities and possibly lower prices. They're also pairing these chips with standard processors from other companies, so it's not an all-or-nothing move—it's a smart mix.

What's the catch? Making your own chips is expensive and hard, and it only makes sense for a giant company like Alphabet. Smaller rivals may not be able to copy this. Still, for everyday riders, this means driverless taxis are getting better, safer, and more widespread—one more step toward a future where hailing a robotaxi is as normal as opening an app.