Meta Platforms has signed a deal to rent Google’s AI chips, known as tensor processing units, to develop new AI models, according to a person involved in the talks. The multi-year deal is worth billions of dollars, said a person who was briefed about it. Meta has also been talking to Google about buying TPUs for its data centers as soon as next year, though the status of that discussion couldn’t be learned.

The deal is a victory for Google, giving it another brand-name customer that could help its efforts to build a multibillion-dollar business selling its TPUs. At the same time, it poses a threat to Nvidia, which dominates the AI chip market and currently supplies Meta with the graphics processing units to develop its AI, a process known as training.

In addition to forging the Meta deal, Google has signed an agreement with an unidentified large investment firm to fund a joint venture that would lease TPUs to other customers, according to a person involved in that arrangement. Google is in talks with other investment firms to fund other such joint ventures.