Intel Preps its AI Strategy

Deep learning may be Xeon?s inflection point

By Rick Merritt, EETimes,, Nov. 15, 2016 – SAN JOSE, Calif. - Intel is showing at the Supercomputing 2016 show this week two new versions of its Xeon processor and a new FPGA card for deep learning. The demos are just the tip of the iceberg for a soup-to-nuts offering in machine learning the company will announce at an event on November 17.

The industry has been waiting to hear Intel's plan for machine learning, one of the hottest areas to emerge in semiconductors in recent years. "I think [Intel CEO] Brian Krzanich will bet the company," said Nigel Toon, chief executive and co-founder of Graphcore, a startup with its own AI processor that recently snagged $30 million from investors including Intel archrival Samsung.

Intel's been making a few investments of its own. In recent weeks, the PC giant acquired two hot processor startups in neural networking-Nervana and Movidius. They add to Intel's $16.7 billion acquisition of Altera whose FPGAs are already being used to accelerate search, networking and other jobs in the data centers of Baidu and Microsoft.

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