Google faces $7Bn AI patent trial
MASSACHUSETTS, UNITED STATES — Alphabet’s Google faces a federal jury trial in Boston over allegations that its tensor processing units, which power artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, infringe patents held by Singular Computing.
Founded by computer scientist Joseph Bates, Singular claims Google copied their patented technology, which enables greater processing power and now supports AI features like speech recognition and content generation in Google services, including Search, Gmail and Translate.
Google introduced its tensor processing units in 2016 specifically to run AI workloads. Singular alleges versions 2 and 3 of these chips, launched in 2017 and 2018, violate two of its patents related to processor architecture.
Singular is seeking up to $7 billion in damages, which would exceed the largest patent infringement award.
Google, on the other hand, looks forward to “setting the record straight in court” and argues its chips differ fundamentally and were developed independently over many years.
The news comes after a copyright infringement lawsuit by The New York Times and other authors against Microsoft-backed OpenAI.
