Chip giant Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) has launched a series of new artificial intelligence (AI) products to seize the AI chip market dominated by NVIDIA.
On December 14th local time, Intel held a press conference called "AI Everywhere", announcing the launch of a series of new AI products, including the first new generation Core Ultra processor based on Intel 4 process technology for personal computers (PCs), and the fifth generation Xeon processor for enterprises with AI accelerators built into each core.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also officially unveiled the third-generation Intel AI accelerator Gaudi 3, which the company plans to go public in 2024 for deep learning and large-scale generation of AI models.
According to Intel, the performance of Gaudi 3 will be better than Nvidia's AI chip H100. In addition to Nvidia's H100, the Gaudi 3 also faces competition from AMD's "state-of-the-art AI accelerator" MI300, which was also delivered to customers in 2024.
Third generation Intel AI accelerator Gaudi 3
In an interview after the press conference, Kissinger hinted that Nvidia's dominant position in the field of AI training will not last forever: "The entire industry is being driven to reduce the market for CUDA (Nvidia's computing platform)." Kissinger mentioned that MLIR, Google, and OpenAI are all moving towards a "programming layer based on Python language" to make AI training more open.
Kissinger added, "We believe that the market barriers to CUDA are relatively small because the entire industry is taking action to develop a wide range of training, innovation, and data science technologies." Kissinger also believes that once AI model training is completed, there is no longer a need to rely on CUDA, and the next focus is on whether the model can operate smoothly. Therefore, inference, that is, the process of deploying AI models, will be the key development direction of the market, And Gaudi 3 is exactly the product Intel uses to enter the AI inference market.
On that day, Intel's stock price rose by over 5.6% after the press conference, closing at $45.18, up 1.37%, and the company's total market value reached $190.48 billion.
Kissinger referred to generative AI as the "focal star" of 2023 and believed that AI PCs would become the focus of attention in 2024. Kissinger said, "AI innovation is expected to increase the impact of the digital economy to one-third of global GDP. Intel is developing technology and solutions to enable customers to seamlessly integrate and effectively run AI across all applications, including in the cloud, and increasingly generate and consume data on local PCs and edge devices."
The launch of the Core Ultra series is an important initiative by Kissinger to revive Intel's past glory. It adopts the new Intel 4 process technology and has achieved significant results in technological innovation, performance improvement, and energy efficiency optimization. According to Intel, the Core Ultra processor series is divided into three different configurations, including Core Ultra 5, Core Ultra 7, and Core Ultra 9. Except for the strongest Core Ultra 9, which was launched in 2024, all other processors were officially released on the 14th. Through partnerships with companies such as Dell, Google's parent company Alphabet, HP, and Microsoft, the Core Ultra processor will support over 230 of the world's first AI PC models.
Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Executive Vice President of Intel Client Computing (CCG), said, "By 2028, AI PCs will occupy 80% of the PC market, and together with our vast hardware and software partner ecosystem, it will help Intel provide the best next-generation technology in the computing field."
It is reported that the Core Ultra cannot provide the power required to run chatbots like ChatGPT without internet connection, but it can handle smaller tasks such as generating Zoom's background blur function, and has more powerful gaming and graphics processing capabilities. For example, it can help video editing software Adobe Premiere improve running speed by over 40%.
According to foreign media analysis, the most important thing is that from the perspective of chip manufacturing technology, the Core Ultra proves that Kissinger's plan to catch up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (TSMC) in 2026 is still possible.
Intel's fifth generation Xeon processors are specifically designed for large organizations such as cloud computing companies to provide power for server deployment. Intel did not disclose its price, but previous generations of Xeon processors were priced in the thousands of dollars. When training and deploying generative AI systems, Intel's Xeon processors are typically used in conjunction with Nvidia's GPUs.
Previously, Intel's Q3 financial report released in October showed that as of September 30, 2023, the company's total revenue was $14.2 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 8%, far exceeding market expectations of $12.8 billion. In terms of guidance, Intel expects the company's fourth quarter revenue to be between $14.6 billion and $15.6 billion, higher than the market's expected $14.4 billion target.