Intel announces new processors for HPC, partners with Lenovo, HPE

Semiconductor giant Intel has announced built-in artificial intelligence (AI) acceleration processors as standard for its Intel Xeon processors meant for enterprise servers.

AI-acceleration processors are specially designed to perform data-intensive AI applications.

The new generation of Xeon, which is expected to be available from the first half of 2020, will offer customers up to 56 processor cores per socket, double the existing count, Intel said in a media statement. Socket houses the CPU unit.

"Our customers are deploying the technology to run their high-performance computing (HPC), advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and high-density infrastructure," said Lisa Spelman, vice president and general manager of data centre marketing, Intel.

The extended 56-core processor offerings into mainline Intel Xeon scalable platforms will enable the company to serve a much broader range of customers who want more processor performance and memory bandwidth, she added. 

Intel also announced partnerships with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Lenovo to build better processors for servers and supercomputers, respectively.

Applications like streaming analytics, AI (including speech to text) and media transcoding require large amounts of computational capability. The new Intel programmable acceleration card helps in managing workloads better for HPE servers.

China-based computing devices manufacturing giant Lenovo, which is one of the largest system providers of large supercomputers, will be optimising Intel’s full portfolio of HPC and AI hardware and software solutions to serve as the foundation for its market strategy, the announcement said.

The partnership with Lenovo in the data centre is part of a multiyear collaboration to speed up the convergence of HPC and AI, Intel added.

"Our goal is to further accelerate innovation into the Exascale era, aggressively waterfalling these solutions to scientists and businesses of all sizes to speed discovery and outcomes," said Kirk Skaugen, executive vice president of Lenovo and president of Lenovo data centre group.