Facebook hires top Google engineer to head its in-house chip development

Google has been developing more chips for its future devices

Facebook has sent another signal that it’s serious about building its own semiconductors, joining Apple, Alphabet’s Google, and Amazon.com in trying to make its own custom chips.

The social-networking giant this month hired Shahriar Rabii to be a vice president and its head of silicon. Rabii previously worked at Google, where he helped lead the team in charge of building chips for the company’s devices, including the Pixel smartphone’s custom Visual Core chip, according to his LinkedIn profile. He’ll work under Andrew Bosworth, the company’s head of virtual reality and augmented reality, according to people familiar with the matter. Spokesmen for