Intel Hits the First Artificial Intelligence Chip Springhill

On August 20, 2019, Intel unveiled its latest processor that will be using Artificial Intelligence (AI). The inference-capable chip Pioneered by Intel’s development facility in Haifa, Israel,  is known as Nervana NNP-I or Springhill which is designed for large computing centers allowing computers to gain knowledge by inference and reach a valuable conclusion based on reasoning and evidence.

Intel’s First AI chip Springhill

Nervana NNP-I or Springhill is the first inference-capable chip, is already in use by social Giant, Facebook. The chip was showcased for the first time on August 20 at the hot chips conference in Silicon Valley, an annual tech symposium.

Intel said it’s first Artificial Intelligence chip comes after an investment of more than $120 million. The chip is based on Intel 10-inch Ice Lake core processor and uses low energy, even when it is coping with high workload or complex artificial intelligence task in the field of inference, that it can handle 3600 images per second at 10 Watt of power.

This hardware is used for two purposes, training the computer to do tasks and to gain knowledge by inference and thereby reach a valuable conclusion. Naveen Rao who is Intel vice president and general manager, Artificial Intelligence Products Group said that; 

“To get to a future state of ‘AI everywhere,’ we’ll need to address the crush of data being generated and ensure enterprises are empowered to make efficient use of their data, processing it where it’s collected when it makes sense and making smarter use of their upstream resources,” said Mr. Rao Naveen Rao. “Data centres and the cloud need to have access to high-performance computing and specialized acceleration for complex AI applications. In this future vision of AI everywhere, a holistic approach is needed – from hardware to software to applications.” he said.

Intel has invested more than $120 million in Israel-based startups, including Havana lab and Neuroblade. However, this chip was developed at the Intel research and development center in Haifa in collaboration with Israeli startup C2DG, which also develops cores of Intel processors. 

This new chip will boost the existing Intel Xeon processor already being used by large enterprises. Intel Xeon processor is used by enterprises for complicated computational tasks. Companies like Intel, Google, Nvidia, Qualcomm and many other startups are in search for new technologies in this field of Artificial Intelligence, which involves the development of hardware to allow processing of huge amount of information.

This field is expected to reach a market of $191 billion by 2025, according to MarketsAndMarkets research firm.

Image Source – macobserver