Intel showcases Xeon chips for network and edge environments at Mobile World Congress

Intel has showcased two new Xeon processor chips, aimed for workloads for the network and the edge deployments revealed at the Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona.   

The new chips are called the Intel Xeon D-2700 and Intel Xeon D-1700, which are built on the company’s next generation platform, which has been named as Sapphire Rapids. The new chips will feature built-in Ethernet, crypto-acceleration and integrated AI capabilities. The 5G speicifc signal processing chips will be able to deliver two times capacity for Vran, in demanding environments.

The new launches will help in various use cases, such as security appliances, enterprise routers, AI inferencing, edge servers, and wireless networks, among others.

Intel already has 70 customers who are using the processors in production or trial in recent weeks, Rakuten mobile is one such customer who have deployed the processors in a public network in Tokyo, which is a rugged edge location. Rugged edge can be defined as an environment that requires real-time, low latency processing, along with storage in volatile conditions, usually not friendly to regular desktop computers. Other clients who are using the processors include Verizon, Ericsson, AT&T, American Tower and Zeblok, among others.   

In terms of performance, the Xeon D-2700 can scale upto 24 cores, while the 1700 can scale upto 10 cores.

“Our mission is to deliver programmable hardware and open software through the broadest ecosystem in a way that best serves our customers and partners now and into the future, and together we will lead the next evolution of cloud-to-network infrastructure,” said Nick McKeown, Intel Senior Fellow and senior vice president of the Network and Edge Group. 

Additionally, Intel also presented enhancements such as new software modules in Intel Smart edge, OpenVINO 2022.1 and future central processing units.