This week Intel Corp announced its first Artificial Intelligence (AI) chip, Springhill, designed especially for large computing centres.
Developed at its development facility in Haifa, Israel, the chip is known as Nervana NNP-I or Springhill and is based on a 10 nanometer Ice Lake processor purpose-built specifically to accelerate deep learning deployment at scale to cope with high workloads using minimal amounts of energy.
The development of Springhill represents the growing uses and applications of AI and the needs of companies and organisations that generate big data.
We’re sharing details on our Nervana NNP-I accelerator, designed to accelerate deep learning deployment at scale. https://t.co/tHEJsIXcDr #HotChips31 pic.twitter.com/CB2YPryK3n
— Intel (@intel) August 20, 2019
According to Intel, Facebook has already started using the product.
Intel said its first AI product comes after it had invested in Israeli AI startups, including Habana Labs and NeuroBlade.
“In order to reach a future situation of ‘AI everywhere’, we have to deal with huge amounts of data generated and make sure organizations are equipped with what they need to make effective use of the data and process them where they are collected,” said Naveen Rao, general manager of Intel’s artificial intelligence products group.
“These computers need acceleration for complex AI applications.”
It said the new hardware chip will help Intel Xeon processors in large companies as the need for complicated computations in the AI field increases.
