Intel fired a massive salvo in the AI wars at its Vision 2024 event. Intel unveiled two powerhouse processors – Lunar Lake for laptops and Gaudi 3 for data centers – that pack a serious punch in AI performance. This one-two combo could be exactly what Intel needs to knock Nvidia off its AI perch while fending off fierce competition from AMD and Qualcomm.
All eyes were on Pat Gelsinger as Intel’s CEO flashed a real-life Lunar Lake processor on stage. This next-gen laptop chip represents a potential AI game-changer, delivering over 100 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of raw AI muscle. A whopping 45 of those TOPS come courtesy of its beefy AI engine, or NPU (neural processing unit) alone!
For some vital context, that NPU performance utterly smokes the paltry 10 TOPS managed by Intel’s current laptop chips. It also hits the 45 TOPS threshold that Intel itself decreed as the new bar for next-gen AI laptops capable of locally running advanced AI workloads like Microsoft’s vaunted Copilot. Yeah, that Lunar Lake NPU is an absolute unit.
“This product is an important step to stave off competition from AMD and Snapdragon,” remarks Ryan Shrout, a leading industry analyst tracking Intel’s AI battle. “I know Intel is driving the team to build a killer product here!”
So when can you get your hands on this AI laptop beast? Intel revealed it has already shipped 5 million AI-enabled laptops and plans to ship 40 million more by year’s end as it ramps up to a goal of 100 million units by the end of 2025.
Gaudi 3 Barrels Into the Data Center Ring
Intel also teased its next flagship data center AI chip dubbed Gaudi 3. The company is pinning its hopes on this monster to finally start chipping away at Nvidia’s vice-like grip on the lucrative data center AI market.
“We have a great paper analyzing the perf/$ of Gaudi 2 coming out very shortly,” teases Shrout, “and I expect Gaudi 3 to be even better.”
Intel certainly needs Gaudi 3 to live up to the hype as Nvidia isn’t resting on its laurels either. AMD is also barreling into the data center AI arena with its formidable new “Strix Point” AI silicon that it claims will triple performance over its current chips. Not to mention Qualcomm’s powerful new Snapdragon X Elite Arm-based AI processors waiting in the wings.
One thing is clear: Intel came to Vision 2024 locked and loaded for an all-out performance brawl in both the laptop and data center AI markets.
