MediaTek Reportedly Secures Meta as ASIC Customer After TPU

Qualcomm has formally unveiled its Dragonfly platform, loudly declaring its entry into the cloud AI market, and by leading with several product lines at once it has captured a sizable base of customers in one stroke. MediaTek, the Taiwanese IC design heavyweight that has drawn high expectations in recent years for its cloud custom chip (ASIC) business, appears set to compete once again with this longtime rival in the ASIC arena. Word from the supply chain is that MediaTek's securing of a "second customer" beyond Google is already firm, and barring surprises, that customer will be Meta as rumored.
MediaTek, by convention, does not publicly comment on individual products, customer situations, or market rumors.
Qualcomm currently appears to hold key major customers such as Meta, Microsoft, and even ByteDance. The industry view, however, is that MediaTek, which continues to deepen its cooperation with Google and stands a chance of locking in a second customer, is not in fact at a disadvantage.
A semiconductor supply chain source stated flatly that, judging by the current ordering outlook of major cloud service providers (CSPs) for AI data centers and ASIC products and the pace of generational transition, Google remains to this day the major customer whose progress is the strongest and whose stance is the most aggressive.
This does not, of course, mean that orders from other CSPs are small in scale or that they might be delayed. Rather, it means that securing Google's orders more reliably guarantees the positive effect they will bring to earnings. Once the mass production schedule emerges, one can basically pin down how much more can be earned in that year, and the scale is above a certain level as well.
MediaTek not only holds two products, code named Zebrafish and Humufish, but according to market related information and confirmation from industry sources well versed in ASICs, its participation in the v9 generation Triggerfish is now all but confirmed. This means that from late 2026 through 2028, and even into 2029, MediaTek can steadily reap the revenue contribution brought by TPU mass production.
Compared with Qualcomm's stated 2029 cloud AI revenue target of 15 billion dollars, it appears that MediaTek, holding multiple TPU ASIC orders, reaching the 10 billion dollar level is only a matter of time.
That said, the industry is paying equal attention to whether MediaTek can smoothly secure a second key CSP major customer. Taking together the earlier market information and recent confirmation from the supply chain side, MediaTek is still actively cooperating with Meta on ASIC products, and the substance of that cooperation is likely still centered on AI accelerator chips.
While Meta has struck cooperation deals with Arm and Qualcomm one after another during this period, those cooperation products were all aimed at CPUs, and on the self developed AI accelerator chip front there is still no clearer cooperation news. If MediaTek can land this customer, it will be of no small help to the subsequent growth of its ASIC business.
IC design industry sources observe that Meta's recent cloud AI development strategy has indeed been somewhat chaotic and unclear. Its in house chip development plans have been repeatedly adjusted, and in the CPU segment alone it has sought out multiple cooperation partners and pursued different approaches.
On the AI accelerator chip front, although Meta has previously officially announced its cooperation plan with Broadcom, word from the supply side indicates that this has not interrupted the cooperation plan underway between MediaTek and Meta. Evidently Meta intends to develop products with as many cooperation partners as possible.
IC design industry sources also emphasized that the cloud AI development blueprints of the two companies, MediaTek and Qualcomm, still look quite different. MediaTek is concentrating all its resources on the ASIC business, whereas Qualcomm intends to pursue customization and standardization in parallel, covering both AI accelerator chip and CPU product directions at once.
The differing plans for their product lines mean the two sides' development strategies should also differ. From MediaTek's standpoint, as long as it focuses its development on the ASIC end and holds onto Google as a major customer over the long term, it will by no means tilt into a disadvantage on the fundamental competitive footing.