Google Pixel 11 could get its biggest security and privacy upgrade in five years

Google’s transition to fully custom silicon is picking up serious momentum. While we already know the Pixel 11’s upcoming Tensor G6 will represent a massive architectural shift for the company’s smartphone hardware, a new leak reveals that Google’s on-device security is also getting its biggest upgrade in half a decade. Enter the Titan M3.

According to details shared by MysticLeaks, Google is actively developing the next generation of its dedicated security coprocessor. Codenamed “Google Epic” and running firmware internally referred to as “longjing,” this new Titan M3 chip is set to debut alongside the Tensor G6 (codenamed “Malibu”) in the upcoming Pixel 11 series.

This marks the first major security hardware overhaul since the Titan M2 launched alongside the original Tensor chip in the Pixel 6 back in 2021.

What a half-decade leap means for Pixel security

Since its inception, the Titan M-series has been the unsung hero of the Pixel lineup, enabling the devices to execute highly sensitive tasks and making the Pixel stand out in a crowded, security-conscious smartphone market. This explains why GrapheneOS sticks with Pixel phones, and it’s quite unfortunate that Pixel support may be dropped in the near future.

To understand the weight of an upgrade, it helps to look at what the current Titan M2 actually does. Serving as the Pixel’s hardware-level “root of trust,” the Titan chip is a completely isolated subsystem that never exposes its data to the main operating system. It enables the Pixel to perform several critical functions:

• Secure bootloader validation: It verifies every piece of software during the boot process, ensuring bad actors haven’t rolled your device back to a vulnerable, older version of Android.
• Hardware encryption & app security: It manages Android’s StrongBox KeyStore, securely housing the cryptographic keys used for full-disk encryption and secure third-party app transactions (like mobile payments).
• Brute-force protection: It enforces strict, hardware-level rate limiting. If someone tries to brute-force your lock screen PIN or passcode, the Titan chip physically throttles the attempts, making it mathematically impossible to break in within a reasonable timeframe.
• Physical anti-tampering: The chip is literally hardened against physical lab attacks, including electromagnetic analysis, voltage glitching, and laser fault injection.

Taking the leap from the M2 to the M3 after five years of development is bound to bring monumental improvements. When you consider the vast amount of on-device AI and software evolution that separates the Pixel 6 from the current Pixel 10, all while relying on the same M2 architecture, a future-proofed Titan M3 will likely introduce next-gen encryption standards. This would effectively allow Google to step up its game and fiercely compete with the latest iterations of Apple’s Secure Enclave Processor (SEP).

Tensor G6 ‘Malibu’ brings a MediaTek M90 modem, dumping Exynos

This security revamp perfectly complements the other major hardware shift coming to the Pixel 11. As MysticLeaks previously revealed, the Exynos-backed Tensor era (Tensor G1 through G5) is officially coming to a close.

With the Tensor G5 being the first Google-made SoC produced by TSMC, the Tensor G6 will take things a step further by entirely dumping Samsung’s modems. Early internal testing indicates the G6 will utilize the MediaTek M90 baseband, which was originally unveiled at MWC 2025.

This new MediaTek modem promises to be significantly faster and far more energy-efficient than the Exynos 5400(i) found in the current generation. By bringing top-of-the-class network speeds and better thermal management, this modem swap could finally put an end to the notoriously bad battery life and connectivity woes that have historically plagued Google’s devices.

With the Google I/O 2026 confirmed for May 19, we should start getting more Pixel 11 tidbits in the coming weeks ahead of launch later this year.

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