Facebook is clearly adamant on developing its own chips, so much so that the social media giant recently recruited Shahriar Rabii, one of Google’s top microchip developer, into its ranks. Prior to joining this, Rabii was responsible for developing the Visual Core chip that is used in Google’s Pixel smartphones.
Facebook’s desire to design and build its own chips stems back to a report in April, the company expressed its desire to produce its own semiconductors and went on a hiring spree.
The move is also a part of a growing trend among big technology and data companies who wish to reduce their dependencies on processors produce by chipmakers such as Qualcomm and Samsung. By making its own custom chips, it’s also likely that Facebook is also seeking to create hardware that would more better (if not perfectly suited) for all its future products.
Barii will be working under Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s head of virtual reality and augmented reality.
(Source: Bloomberg via Hot Hardware)
