The new desktop processor marks the first time Intel is including a dedicated acceleration circuitry for artificial intelligence — called a ‘neural processing unit.’
The Intel Xeon server chip includes two compute tiles that have a combined 64 computing cores, each with acceleration for processing neural networks.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on Thursday unveiled the chip giant’s latest microprocessors for desktop and server, and showed off a forthcoming AI processor, at a morning event at the Nasdaq Market Site in New York City.
Artificial intelligence is probably « underestimated, » said Gelsinger, likely to represent at some point a third of the global economy, but also at risk of consuming a quarter or more of the world’s energy if not developed efficiently.
The fourth-generation of Intel’s Xeon server, code-named Emerald Rapids, offers performance that is 21% higher, on average, than the previous generation, Sapphire Rapids, said Intel. The new server also makes possible a 36% increase in « average performance per watt, » said Intel.
With 64 individual processing cores, the new Xeon can achieve improvements in AI such as speeding up large language model processing by 23%, said Intel’s head of data center computing, Sandra Rivera.
