So the tensor chip isn't involved in this, and they could really do this for any phone if they wanted to?
Correct. I even believe the feature will not stay free forever. Google is accepting a small hit in terms of cloud costs to boost the Pixel 8 Pro sales right now. But IMO they will likely start to charge for that cloud work or at least put some quotas in place which you could increase if you pay (same as what happened to Google Colab), and at that point, if they're going to charge for it I don't see any reason why it would remain exclusive to the Pixel 8 Pro.
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