Intel brings AI to all its lines of CPUs

Intel has announced a range of technologies, at its third annual Intel Innovation event, that aim to bring artificial intelligence to all areas and make it more accessible for all types of workloads, from client and edge to network and cloud.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger stated that AI represents a significant change and opens up a new era of global expansion where computing is even more fundamental to a better future for everyone. This creates massive business and societal opportunities for developers, allowing them to push technological boundaries, solve major global challenges, and enhance the lives of every individual on the planet.

The CEO displayed the efforts of Intel to integrate AI capabilities into its hardware products and make them accessible through open, multi-architecture software solutions. Pat also stressed upon the important role of AI in driving the "Siliconomy," which refers to the growing economy enabled by the combination of silicon and software.

Recent MLPerf AI inference performance results have further cemented Intel's commitment to covering all aspects of the AI continuum, including the most challenging and extensive generative AI models and large language models. The results also highlight the Intel Gaudi2 accelerator as the best alternative available in the market for AI computing needs. Intel's CEO, Gelsinger, revealed plans to construct a massive AI supercomputer that will be fully powered by Intel Xeon processors and 4,000 Intel Gaudi2 AI hardware accelerators, with Stability AI serving as the anchor customer.

The Chief Technology Officer of Alibaba Cloud, Zhou Jingren has recently showcased how the company is utilizing 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors that come with built-in AI acceleration. These processors are applied to "our generative AI and large language model, Alibaba Cloud's Tongyi Foundation Models." Jingren said that Intel’s technology has improved the response times with an average acceleration of 3x.

Intel has given a glimpse into the next generation of Intel Xeon processors, revealing that the 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors will deliver a combination of performance improvements and faster memory while consuming the same amount of power. Following the launch of Sierra Forest, the Granite Rapids with P-core performance will deliver 2x to 3x better AI performance compared to the 4th Gen Xeon.