— A major shift in Google’s chip design hints at powerful new graphics for the upcoming Pixel 10
The upcoming Google Pixel 10 may arrive with a major hardware upgrade, as new industry evidence points to the use of an Imagination Technologies GPU in the Tensor G5 processor. This would mark a significant departure from the Arm Mali GPUs used in previous Pixel devices, signaling Google’s growing ambition in custom chip design.
The speculation gained credibility following the RISC-V Day Tokyo conference, where a shared blog post highlighted a list of chipsets integrating Imagination GPUs. The table, which was later removed, explicitly named the Tensor G5, expected to power the Pixel 10. It mentioned the DXT-48-1536 GPU, a high-end graphics unit capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a first for any Pixel smartphone.
This new GPU would represent a major leap in graphics performance, enabling better visuals, smoother gaming, and enhanced augmented reality capabilities. It’s a strong signal that Google is aiming to compete more aggressively with rivals like Apple, whose in-house GPUs have dominated mobile graphics benchmarks.
The Tensor G5 is also expected to be built on a 3nm-class node by TSMC, marking a fabrication shift from Samsung. The chip will feature Arm Cortex CPU cores, a fully custom image signal processor (ISP), a Google-designed memory controller, and proprietary modules for power and cache management. Additional I/O components such as USB, PCIe, and display interfaces will continue to be sourced from third parties.
Beyond Google, the same report also listed a custom Xiaomi chipset—codenamed XuanJie—that will reportedly use an Imagination GPU as well. This indicates a wider industry trend towards diversifying GPU suppliers and reducing reliance on traditional players like Arm and Qualcomm.
If accurate, these changes could make the Google Pixel 10 one of the most powerful and graphically advanced Android phones to date, delivering a premium experience for gamers, creators, and everyday users alike.
