Intel’s on a mission to bring AI everywhere, says CEO Pat Gelsinger

Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer (CEO) of Intel, unveiled the latest Gaudi 3 processors. Gaudi 3 is expected to improve the AI compute performance by four times, compared to its predecessor.

The announcement was part of Intel’s Vision 2024 conference.

Intel, facing fierce competition from Nvidia in the AI processing market, stated that Gaudi 3 will be faster and more power-efficient than Nvidia’s H100 and will train AI models 1.7 times faster than H100.

The company also announced Gaudi 3’s availability to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) – including Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Lenovo.

Indian IT major Infosys also announced its partnership with Intel, under which the company will use the fourth and fifth Gen Intel Xeon processors, Intel Gaudi 2 AI accelerators, and Intel Core Ultra to Infosys Topaz.

Topaz is an AI-first set of services, solutions, and platforms by Infosys, where the company uses GenAI technologies.

The chipmaker is looking at a strategy that encompasses hardware, software, and cloud services.

On AI PCs, Gelsinger said that the company was ramping up its production and is on track to meet its supply target of 40 million units this year and 100 million next year.

“We put the WiFi technology into volumes, which enabled every place to have wireless connectivity. With the AI PCs again, we are doing a similar thing and ramping up the production of Core Ultra PCs,” he said.

Gelsinger also announced the launching of an open platform for reference design and solutions soon, in collaboration with SAP, RedHat, VMware, and other industry players with an aim to accelerate the deployment of secure generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) systems.

Reference design refers to a technical blueprint of a system that is intended for others to copy, with or without modifications.

Speaking at Intel Vision 2024, Gelsinger said, “We’ll soon be launching an open platform for bringing together the reference designs and solutions that will allow us to build the blueprints, demonstrate performance, interoperability, trustworthiness, and ensure effective benchmarking and certification of AI solutions. This will also provide open governance for the entire ecosystem to move forward.”

Through this collaboration with the industry, Intel looks to address key requirements in the AI space including efficient deployment of AI systems, effective utilization of existing infrastructure, and better integration with hardened enterprise software stacks that exist, Gelsinger added.

During the event, the chip design giant also launched the Xeon 6 series of processors.

Gelsinger told a packed auditorium in Phoenix, Arizona, “Intel’s on a mission to bring AI everywhere. I’m quite excited about the next platform. You know, before competitors shipped their first chips, we’re launching our second — the Lunar Lake with 3X the AI performance. And, the third generation is in [fabrication].”

First Published: Apr 10 2024 | 6:51 PM IST