Google’s next-gen Taara chip delivers internet at speed of light without cables
The new chip should be ready for use in 2026 and could find use in autonomous vehicles as well as at home.
Google has released more information about its highly anticipated Taara high-speed, light internet chip. Promising to deliver speeds of up to 20Gbps per second, this new chip could redefine how we all connect and use the internet.
X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, has been developing the Taara chip for many years. Now, with this new silicon photonic chip, all that hard work has finally paid off.
Alphabet explains that this chip can transmit data through the air using beams of light. The new chip is a significant improvement over its predecessor, namely that it has dispensed with the need for a complicated series of mirrors and other light direction-changing hardware.
The chip functions similarly to traditional fiber optic cable, using light to carry data, but without the physical cable.
Lightning-fast internet coming
The new chip can use advanced software to help steer beams of light to where they are needed. Furthermore, it is considerably smaller than its predecessor.
The original Taara Lightbridge technology was roughly the size of a traffic light; the new chip is approximately the size of a fingernail, offering a substantial increase in convenience.
Taara was initially developed for X’s Project Loon internet broadcasting balloons. However, Alphabet shut that project down in 2021 to focus on the Taara chip alone.
The chip, or its predecessor, has even been tested to beam broadband across the Congo River and the streets of Nairobi.