Intel Gaudi 2 Claims Better Cost-Performance Over NVIDIA AI Accelerators

Under CEO Pat Gelsinger, Intel is going through its greatest transformation in its storied history which spans more than half a century and has helped create the modern electronics industry. When Gelsinger returned to Intel in 2021, it was stuttering and had been overtaken by Nvidia and TSMC as the maker of the most advanced semiconductors and the most efficient foundry on the planet. But the 2023 Intel Innovation event is a key milestone showing Gelsinger's revival plan is coming to fruition.

AI is a big part of this transformation - Intel has adapted its expertise in CPU and x86 architecture to create Gaudi, its AI acceleration processors competing with Nvidia's A and H series powering things like ChatGPT and even helping India's Reliance create an Indian large language model.

With Gaudi 2, Intel is not targeting the high end of the market. It is going after workloads for developers that aren't cash-rich like big organizations such as Microsoft, which use Nvidia's H100 processors for the Bing Chat feature leveraging the OpenAI GPT-4 model. Instead, it is targeting the A100 line and promising, on average, 2x the performance for the same cost, which is no small achievement.

With Gaudi 2, Intel is also targeting major customers like Dell and Accenture. It believes its rounded product suite, including Core CPUs, Xeon servers, ARC GPUs, and now Gaudi, means it has an offering for everyone.

This is happening as Intel's foundry business gets back on track. By year-end, Intel 4 (7nm equivalent) chips will ship, including in the Acer Swift laptop launched at Innovation. It gets the Core Ultra chip, which has AI at its core for on-device ML like Deep Render's AI-powered compression. Gelsinger said Intel 3 comes next year, with 20A and 18A on track sequentially. Intel 4 also adds Foveros packaging, crucial for infusing AI across its products.

Soon, Intel will share an update on its foundry business opened to external customers in 2021. AI is playing a vital role in this transformation.