Intel Reveals Details of New AI Chip to Fight Nvidia Dominance

The Intel logo is displayed on computer screens at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, US July 31, 2017. (Reuters)
The Intel logo is displayed on computer screens at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, US July 31, 2017. (Reuters)
TT
20

Intel Reveals Details of New AI Chip to Fight Nvidia Dominance

The Intel logo is displayed on computer screens at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, US July 31, 2017. (Reuters)
The Intel logo is displayed on computer screens at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, US July 31, 2017. (Reuters)

Intel detailed a new version of its artificial intelligence chip at its Vision event on Tuesday that takes aim at Nvidia's dominance in semiconductors that power AI.

Tech companies are hunting for an alternative source of the scarce chips that are needed for AI. Intel said that its new Gaudi 3 chip was capable of training a specific large language models 50% more quickly than Nvidia's prior generation H100 processor. It is also capable of computing generative AI responses, a process called inference, more quickly than the H100 chips for some of the models Intel tested.

"Our customers, first and foremost, are asking for choice in the industry," said Intel vice president, strategy and product management Jeni Barovian. "They are coming to us and they are expecting that Intel, as a computing leader, will follow the wave of (generative AI) and deliver solutions that meet their needs. And they are looking for an open approach."

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have struggled to produce a compelling bundle of chips and the software necessary to build AI applications that can become a viable alternative to Nvidia. Nvidia controlled roughly 83% of the data center chip market in 2023, with a majority of the remaining 17% share held by Google's custom tensor processing units (TPUs) that it does not sell directly.

Intel used Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co's 5nm process to build the chips. Gaudi 3 includes two main processor chips fused together, and is more than twice as fast as its predecessor. The chip is designed to be strung together with thousands of others and when done so can generate an enormous amount of computer power.

The Gaudi 3 chip will be available to server builders such as Supermicro and Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the second quarter of this year.

The next generation of Gaudi chips will be code named Falcon Shores.



Microsoft Halts China-based Tech Support for Pentagon Systems

FILE - The Microsoft company logo is displayed at their offices in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
FILE - The Microsoft company logo is displayed at their offices in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
TT
20

Microsoft Halts China-based Tech Support for Pentagon Systems

FILE - The Microsoft company logo is displayed at their offices in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
FILE - The Microsoft company logo is displayed at their offices in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)

Microsoft said Friday it is making sure that personnel based in China are not providing technical support for US Defense Department systems, after investigative news site ProPublica revealed the practice earlier this week.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth confirmed that work on Defense Department cloud services had been outsourced to people in China, insisting that the country will not have "any involvement whatsoever" with the department's systems going forward.

"Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services," the company's chief communications officer, Frank Shaw, said in a post on X.

ProPublica reported Tuesday that the tech giant was using engineers based in China -- Washington's primary military rival -- to maintain Pentagon computer systems, with only limited supervision by US personnel who often lacked the necessary expertise to do the job effectively.

US Senator Tom Cotton asked Hegseth to look into the matter in a letter dated Thursday, and the Pentagon chief responded that he would do so.

Hegseth then posted a video on X Friday evening in which he said "it turns out that some tech companies have been using cheap Chinese labor to assist with DoD cloud services. This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today's digital threat environment."

"At my direction, the department will... initiate -- as fast as we can -- a two-week review, or faster, to make sure that what we uncovered isn't happening anywhere else across the DoD," AFP quoted him as saying.

"We will continue to monitor and counter all threats to our military infrastructure and online networks," he added, thanking "all those Americans out there in the media and elsewhere who raised this issue to our attention so we could address it."