Intel's AI Everywhere Event Unveils Strategic Moves in the Era of AI


Last week, Intel took center stage in New York City for its highly anticipated AI Everywhere event. Attendees at the Nasdaq MarketSite excitedly awaited insights from CEO Pat Gelsinger on how Intel plans to compete, grow, and innovate in the rapidly evolving landscape of AI, with generative AI emerging as the hottest topic of 2020.

The primary objective of the event was to communicate to the broader markets that Intel has a comprehensive plan to seize opportunities in both the PC space and the data center. One key focal point was the shift towards a new PC architecture, specifically the move from AI workloads being done on core CPUs to neural processing units (NPUs). This transition aims to enable large language models and other generative AI capabilities to be executed on devices with minimal latency, irrespective of available connectivity.

Over the course of an action-packed hour, we heard from CEO Pat Gelsinger and his top lieutenants including EVPs Michelle Johnston Holthaus , Sandra Rivera , and Christoph Schell . The focus areas included client, datacenter, and go to market.

In the race for AI PC market consideration, major players such as AMD, Qualcomm, and Intel have each outlined their AI Processing Unit (AIPC) strategies. Pat Gelsinger, Intel's CEO, emphasized the company's commitment to Meteor Lake (Core Ultra), revealing that the first versions of an AI PC are already shipping and available today.

One of the distinct advantages that I see for Intel comes in its deeply rooted distribution networks and OEM relationships. Intel had the CEOs and top executives of essentially all of the world’s PC makers join the event (virtually) to discuss their commitments to Intel and its current and future client offerings. From Michael Dell to Satya Nadella, it was clear the company had the support and designs needed to drive adoption of its new AI PC offerings.

A pivotal aspect of the event was Intel's strategy to compete in the data center arena. Recent announcements from AMD, particularly its MI300X specifications, have positioned the company as a formidable competitor to NVIDIA A and H series in both inference and training. Intel, however, is dealing with delays with Ponte Vecchio and has had to lean in on its Habana products (Gaudi 2), emphasizing its performance in training, including the cost-effective training of OpenAI's GPT-3.

While acknowledging the importance of GPUs and ASICs in AI computing, Intel highlighted the significant computing horsepower offered by its fifth-generation Xeon (Emerald Rapids) CPUs for AI workloads. The event effectively addressed the question of whether Intel has what it takes to compete in AI, showcasing the company's progress and commitment to overcoming challenges from the past decade. While powerful GPUs are certainly the most flexible and in demand for the world’s small but meaningful subset of organizations developing LLMs, it is also well understood that a lot of acceleration can be done more efficiently on the core CPU, and this has long been a focal point for Intel.

Intel's IDM 2.0 strategy, aiming for five processes in four years, has been running close to on schedule, instilling confidence among investors and customers. CEO Pat Gelsinger's is also focused on geopolitical challenges, particularly those related to China and Taiwan, positions Intel uniquely, given its commitment to substantial capacity expansion in the United States. This matches our sentiment at The Futurum Group , which sees the critical importance of more U.S. based capacity for leading nodes–Intel is well positioned to capitalize on this need.

The AI PC opportunity received positive reception, with Intel's early market entry providing a chance to leverage its robust distribution and partner ecosystem however many wanted to hear more about the datacenter opportunity...

In the data center space, Intel faces a more extended journey, but initiatives like Gaudi 3, OpenVino, and OneAPI signal progress in developer utilization and higher abstraction layers. Intel remains steadfast in its belief that it can provide genuine competition to both NVIDIA and AMD while serving as a valuable partner to hyperscale providers.

As the industry anticipates continued vertical integration by cloud providers, Intel's event underscores its dedication to remaining a key player in shaping the future of AI. The strategic moves unveiled at the AI Everywhere event position Intel as a resilient contender, ready to navigate the evolving landscape of AI with confidence and innovation. In the past 2 years under Pat Gelsinger’s leadership it is hard not to see meaningful improvement–even for the perma-bears, which may at some point need to look around to see this isn’t the same Intel that created the mess that Gelsinger and his team has been busy fixing.

#NVIDIA #AMD #GenAI #GPU

Great stuff, Dan. It's still too early to definitively say whether Intel will fully catch up to NVIDIA and AMD in the AI race.

Stephen Foskett

Former sysadmin and storage consultant, present cat herder for Tech Field Day, future old man shouting “on-premises” at clouds. I talk to cameras a lot.

11mo

Intel is doing exactly what is needed to retake the lead. Now, as they say in Kentucky, it "just lacks finishin'"!

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