In the beginning T2 was created to compile i386 GNU/Linux specifically optimized for a given x86 CPU such as Intel's Pentium or AMD's K6 to benefit as much of latest instruction extensions the processor manufacturers integrated into their CPUs.

As this goal was reached quickly - additional, more powerful but also, at that time, harder to get architectures where targeted: Alpha, PowerPC and SPARC. Later on UltraSPARC, MIPS, MIPS64, HPPA eventually where adapted as their price dropped into reasonable margins. Due to the flexibility of the scripted and open build process IA-64 as well as x86-64 could be supported immediately when they where introduced by their manufacturers. Just the toolchain support patches had to be pulled in and all the packages could be cross-compiled automatically.