Waymo revealed the architecture of its custom 5-nanometer ASIC chip this week in a blog post1,6 while simultaneously opening its Zeekr-built Ojai robotaxi to all riders in three U.S. cities3. ANALYSIS The parallel timing reveals a company reshaping both ends of its hardware supply chain at once — asserting vertical control over the silicon that runs its autonomy stack while locking in a vehicle platform sourced from a Chinese automaker subject to steep U.S. tariffs.
Why it matters
Waymo is the leader in driverless technology, completing roughly 500,000 paid trips a week across about 4,000 vehicles in more than 10 cities8. ◆ Every hardware decision it makes — which chips process sensor data, which vehicles carry passengers — sets a de facto industry template at a scale no competitor currently matches.
The big picture
The custom chip, unveiled in a blog post on Thursday, is a purpose-built ASIC fabricated on a 5-nanometer process5. Waymo says the chip delivers more than 1,000 TOPS of machine-learning performance dedicated to front-end sensor processing4. It handles "the massive influx of raw data before it reaches our core ML brain," extracting information from raw lidar, radar, and camera streams, including temporal denoising for better low-light perception. The chip is already in production in Waymo's latest robotaxi generation.
The disclosure named seven hardware suppliers: AMD, Micron, Nvidia, Samsung, SanDisk, Socionext, and TSMC. Waymo has not dropped Nvidia or AMD; both remain on the published supplier list. Bloomberg reported that Waymo has built the ASIC to "diversify away from companies like Nvidia"2, but The Next Web noted that the 1,000-TOPS figure compares "one component doing one job against complete driving platforms. It is not a claim Waymo made".
ANALYSIS The distinction matters. Waymo's ASIC is a front-end preprocessor, not a full system-on-chip replacement for Nvidia's DRIVE platform. The strategic value is not in matching Nvidia on a spec sheet but in owning the layer where raw sensor data is shaped before inference — the step that most directly determines what the car "sees."
Meanwhile, the Ojai robotaxi — built on an EV platform supplied by Zeekr, a Chinese automaker owned by Geely — is now open to all riders in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. The vehicle runs Waymo's sixth-generation autonomous driving system and features three Gemini-powered touchscreen displays. Waymo imports stripped-down versions of the Zeekr vehicles without sensors, computers, or autonomous driving technology, then installs its own U.S.-developed autonomy stack at its factory in Mesa, Arizona. Chinese-made EVs currently face a 100% tariff, on top of other import duties. Forbes reported earlier this month that more than 3,200 Zeekr vehicles have been shipped to the U.S. since 2024. A TechCrunch spokesperson said Waymo currently has about 300 Ojai robotaxis in its commercial fleet.
ANALYSIS Waymo's two announcements pull in opposite directions on supply-chain risk. The custom ASIC reduces dependence on any single chip vendor by giving Waymo direct control over a critical processing layer. But the Ojai deepens dependence on a Chinese vehicle manufacturer operating under tariff conditions that could shift with trade policy.
Waymo said it has scaled raw onboard compute power by 20 times in eight years. ◆ That trajectory explains the ASIC investment: at that rate of compute growth, buying off-the-shelf silicon means absorbing whatever cost and design constraints a third-party vendor imposes. A custom front-end chip lets Waymo tune the hardware to its own sensor suite — 13 high-resolution cameras processed simultaneously and in real time, alongside lidar and radar.
Waymo also plans to expand its fleet with Hyundai Ioniq 5 SUVs equipped with its autonomous driving technology. ◆ That second vehicle line hedges the Zeekr bet, but the Ojai is the platform carrying the sixth-generation system and the new chip today.
What's next
Waymo plans to bring the Ojai to Denver, Las Vegas, and San Diego later this year. Electrek reported last week that more than 600 finished Ojai robotaxis were staged outside Waymo's Arizona facility and appeared ready for deployment. ◆ The gap between 300 vehicles in the commercial fleet and 600 staged for deployment suggests a rapid scaling phase — one that will test both the custom silicon's production pipeline and the tariff math on every Zeekr body shipped from China. Alphabet also expanded its partnership with Marvell on Wednesday to develop chips for its TPU ecosystem, a reminder that custom silicon ambitions at Waymo sit inside a parent company already deep in the chip-design business.