Google has decided not to sell TPUs directly to others; instead, the TPUs will be made available via the Google cloud platform: Cloud TPU Alpha (https://cloud.google.com/tpu/). Cloud TPU Alpha will offer up to 180 teraflops of computing performance and 64 GB of ultra-high bandwidth memory. Users will be able to connect to these Cloud TPUs from custom virtual machines.
Google has also decided to make a cluster of 1,000 cloud TPUs available free of charge to machine learning researchers around the world, with the aim of accelerating the pace of open machine learning research. Access to it will be given to selected individuals for limited amounts of computing time; individuals can sign up using this link: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/tpusignup/. According to the Google Blog:
Share their TFRC-supported research with the world through peer-reviewed publications, open-source code, blog posts, or other open media
Share concrete, constructive feedback with Google to help us improve the TFRC program and the underlying Cloud TPU platform over time.
Imagine a future in which ML acceleration is abundant and develop new kinds of machine learning models in anticipation of that future"