Working Fast and Travelling Slow. A day with Intel® at the London Tech Show 2023

You know it’s going to be a hectic day when you are asked to attend a huge tech show, so when Intel asked me to help them on their stand at Cloud Expo Europe 2023 I was set to start early, do my research and wear some comfortable trainers. Researching their new 4th Gen Intel ® Xeon ® Processors  the night before, even an admitted non-techie like me was impressed. These things are fast! The processors incorporate built-in accelerators that boost performance in AI, data analytics and storage as well as improve power efficiency in new and sexy ways. Of course, the 4th Gen Intel Xeon processor is a very technical product, this is Intel after all, but part of the job was for me to interview some of their own people about what these things can do and get them to explain to me, someone who is decidedly non-technical,  just why they are all so excited about this particular product launch. 

There was also talk of testing the Racing Simulator driving rig on the stand, more of which later…

When the morning came snow was falling on London. It had been falling much of the night before and my driver texted me that he was going to pick me up half an hour earlier than planned “just in case” of traffic problems. We crawled through heavy traffic to the Excel conference centre, passing commuters picking their way carefully along and cars rolling slowly along through the flurries of snow. They at least had dressed for the weather, whereas I had forgotten the comfortable shoes in the rush to grab the lift early, and was wearing my favourite heeled gun-metal boots. I sincerely hoped I didn’t have to walk far through the snow in them which would almost certainly result in my injuring myself, and, more importantly, ruining the boots. It was also cold. Damn cold.

So it was that I arrived at the Intel stand, somewhat flustered, freezing cold, and feeling the need to both warm up, and speed up my day.

What was immediately obvious was that the Intel gang are genuinely excited about the capability of this product. The day passed in a flash as I spoke to their people, chatting about the application of the tech, from speeding up development work, retail applications like streamlining shopping, making farming and transport more efficient, manufacturing such as factory automation, gaming and infrastructure efficiencies. This processor is clearly very cool, but the enthusiasm was warm and a real pleasure to witness. It’s so obvious when a product genuinely gets the people involved in creating and selling it so enthusiastic. 

Filming the interviews was fun and Walter, Chloe, Vanessa and Declan made the job easy, even though bells were constantly ringing in the background, crowds of people watching us and lots of interest around the stand and the product. We had to stop once or twice because the gang were needed to attend to visitors and answer technical questions as the interest got busier and it was all hands on deck attending to existing and potential new customers.

 I kept overhearing new applications of the processors, and impressive stats for the tech, so thanks to all for your patience when explaining more to me about the security aspects of the AI as well as assuring me the rig was actually too heavy for me to steal,  and reiterating what each accelerator was up to inside the processor. I’m such a geek for components and their functionality, and I ask a lot of questions, so I thank Dec especially, for endless patience here!

As the day went by the crowds kept coming and the hall got busier, noisier, and hotter. After interviewing the lovely Alexander and Avishay from cnvrg.io, an Intel company, on how their MLOps platform runs stable diffusion (a text to image algorithm) on Xeon, I was hoping to finish up, grab a coffee and make my way out of the venue and across London, to change my shoes and go to a speaking engagement for International Women’s Day. The Intel team were predominantly female and we were enjoying a quick chat about the day when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Jen, don’t forget about the rig…”

Now, I had been hoping to avoid this. Throughout the day I’d witnessed a long line of people queuing to test the tech out on the Racing Simulator on the booth. They were all very good and, appropriately, very fast on the rig. 

I suspected I would not be, but there was no avoiding this part of the gig, so I had to jump the queue (sorry gang) sit in the chair and stretch my short legs to reach the pedals and have a go, so they could get a shot of me “in action.” Always the consummate professional (ahem) I sat down and with a long queue of gamers, customers and students and started my “lap” on the rig.

I was quick. Really quick. I think I hold a record for the fastest crash anyone had ever seen on it, I mean, I was wearing silver cowboy boots, so it was probably that. Anyway, I needn’t have worried, because on the magnetic leader board my name came up as the fastest lap, almost as if someone had cheated and made up the fastest time... Don’t know how that happened, maybe there was a social engineer about…

I left Intel and the gang at the show impressed by both their people and their tech. It was a fun, informative day with a group of people who really believed in what they were doing, and their techie enthusiasm and warmth was catching. I shifted down several gears as my cab crawled slowly across London to the next gig and I wondered idly to myself whether I could one day persuade Intel to make those clever accelerators speed up journeys on snowy days or maybe make the commuters walk quicker and the snow clear faster.

I’ll ask them to work on that, I thought, then realised with a smile, that they probably already are.

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