San Francisco, Apr 16 (IANS): Google may be developing its own processor for future versions of its Pixel smartphones and the later versions of the chip could even power Chromebooks, said a media report.

Google's own chip could power Pixel smartphones as soon as next year, said the report by Axios this week.

The move could be a blow to Qualcomm which supplies the main processor on Pixel phones.

But it may help Pixel phones better compete with iPhones which are powered by chips designed by Apple.

The chip, apparently code-named Whitechapel, would be an 8-core ARM processor built using South Korean tech giant Samsung's 5-nanometer process, according to Axios.

The chip may also have hardware optimised for Google's machine learning technology and a portion of the chip could be dedicated to improving performance of Google Assistant, according to the report.

For other functions in its devices, Google already makes its own chips.

Some of its Pixel phones have a security chip called the Titan M, for example, while the Pixel 4 has a coprocessor called the Pixel Neural Core, The Verge reported.

But the role of the main processor is far greater as it helps determine the capabilities of the device including speed and battery life.