TPU Deep Dive

TPUs achieve high throughput and energy efficiency through systolic arrays and ahead-of-time compilation with XLA. Unlike GPUs with thousands of cores and large HBM, TPUs use fewer compute units with larger on-chip memory buffers. They scale from single chips to multi-pod configurations using 3D torus topologies connected via Inter-Core Interconnect and Optical Circuit Switching. The design philosophy prioritizes predictable computation patterns and minimal memory operations, making them ideal for matrix multiplication-heavy workloads like neural network training and inference.