The News: 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. You can read more about the event on the Intel website.
Intel’s AI Everywhere Event Unveils Strategic Moves in the Era of AI
Analyst Take: 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 toward 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 (LLMs) 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, data center, 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 4 years, has been running close to on schedule, instilling confidence among investors and customers. CEO Gelsinger’s focus on geopolitical challenges, particularly those related to China and Taiwan, positions Intel uniquely, given its commitment to substantial capacity expansion in the US. This matches our sentiment at The Futurum Group, which sees the critical importance of more US-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 data center 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 is not the same Intel that created the mess that Gelsinger and his team have been busy fixing.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
Intel’s FPGA Unit Becoming a Separate Business To Drive FPGA Growth
Intel’s AI Portfolio with Greg Lavender & Sandra Rivera – Six Five On the Road
Intel Q3 Revenue Hits $14.16 Billion, Beating Analyst Estimates
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
