Google's new Pixel 11 chip might not be 2nm, after all

Tech enthusiasts love their specs, and for as much as we might understand that there’s a whole lot more to the performance and experience that a device offers than what can easily be distilled down to a few numbers… numbers sure are convenient, aren’t they? Whether we’re counting megapixels or measuring RAM, everyone sits up and takes notice when those numbers cross a new threshold — and that’s just what’s been happening with the chips that power our phones lately, as manufacturers move to advanced 2nm fabrication levels. But with the Pixel 11 series debuting this week, we’re getting some unfortunate news about the rise of the 2nm era.

Samsung got the ball rolling on 2nm chips in phones with its Exynos 2600, but lately we’ve been looking forward to Google joining that club, too. The Tensor G5 was a 3nm chip, but rumors have been hinting that the Tenor G6 could make the move to 2nm since last fall. And really, that momentum never faded, leaving us expecting a 2nm Tensor G6 all the way up until the Pixel 11’s launch this week.

But is that what we actually got? Google hasn’t been talking a lot about detailed Tensor G6 hardware specs, instead focusing on broad performance metrics. But according to an interview published by the Central News Agency attributed to a Google VP named Peng Yu-chun, the Tensor G6 is apparently not a 2nm chip, after all, and is instead being built with an upgraded 3nm process.

While there are definitely benefits to moving to a finer fabrication level, this is also just as much about bragging rights. Apple’s expected to introduce its own 2nm chip with the iPhone 18 Pro later this year. Not even Qualcomm has made the move yet, although rumors similarly point to the possibility of it soon introducing its own 2nm Snapdragon offerings. Google managing to beat them both to market with a 2nm Tensor G6 would have been a minor coup.

We’ve reached out to Google to attempt to confirm this report, as while it certainly reads as unambiguously clarifying that the Pixel 11’s Tensor G6 is a 3nm chip, the fact that we’re working off a translation can always introduce uncertainty. With any luck, we also might get to learn a little about why Tensor G6 development ultimately went in this direction, instead of how we’d been hearing rumored. We’ll update you with anything we ultimately learn.