In an surprising but groundbreaking transfer, Intel and AMD (AMD)—longtime semiconductor rivals—have joined forces in a bid to strengthen their foothold within the A.I. arms race. At this 12 months’s Lenovo Tech World occasion on Tuesday (Oct. 15) in Seattle, Wash., the 2 corporations introduced a coalition referred to as the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group. The group will act as a collaboration hub to make sure that upcoming AMD and Intel chips are “constant and appropriate” throughout computing functions and meet the rising calls for of generative A.I. (genAI)—whether or not in knowledge facilities, cloud platforms, or shopper gadgets. Whereas the coalition is centered round AMD and Intel, it is going to search insights and suggestions from a slew of tech corporations, together with Broadcom, Dell, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo, Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle and Crimson Hat.
“With the rise of genAI and developments in system design, the demand for computing energy is evolving quicker than ever. That is the primary time I and Lisa [Su, CEO of AMD] have agreed on one thing,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger mentioned throughout an onstage presentation, humorously acknowledging the collaboration. “However this time, it’s for the larger good.”
Regardless of their fierce competitors within the CPU and GPU markets, Intel and AMD’s historical past of working collectively on key computing requirements like PCI, PCIe and USB units a robust basis for the most recent initiative. x86 is a kind of chip structure that has been the spine of contemporary computing for over 40 years. Intel processors just like the Pentium and Core i3/i5/i7/i9 and AMD’s Ryzen Athlon are among the most well-known x86-based CPUs.
The brand new advisory group is meant to set a precedent for increasing the x86 structure’s affect throughout the tech panorama and enhancing its computing prowess to be used circumstances the place industry-wide standardization is essential, significantly in genAI. Founding members, together with Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, termed the collaboration a “crossroads within the historical past of computing.” By means of a video message performed on the occasion, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian mentioned that the partnership will unlock “new ranges of efficiency and effectivity.”
“The way forward for A.I. is personalised and on-device,” Gelsinger mentioned throughout his presentation. “Slightly than counting on cloud servers for knowledge sharing, the following era of A.I. will make the most of highly effective, centralized A.I. processing instantly on gadgets, eliminating the dependency on web connection whereas sustaining the identical processing capabilities and responsiveness.”
After Gelsinger’s presentation, AMD CEO Lisa Su stepped up on stage to unveil a brand new vary of AMD EPYC 9005 Collection CPUs and Intuition MI325X processors. Su claimed that the brand new processors will ship 28 p.c quicker knowledge processing, guaranteeing GPUs can deal with even probably the most demanding A.I. workloads. She mentioned Intuition processors have now been fine-tuned for standard genA.I. fashions like Secure Diffusion 3 and Meta Llama 3, supporting over one million fashions accessible by means of Hugging Face.
“With our fifth Gen AMD EPYC, we’re pushing the boundaries of computational and A.I. workload dealing with functionality available in the market,” Su mentioned onstage. She added that main A.I. fashions within the {industry}, akin to OpenAI’s GPT and Meta’s Llama, at the moment are powered by AMD’s newest A.I. accelerators. She additionally introduced AMD’s collaboration with Lenovo on making A.I.-powered PCs to hurry up the widespread adoption of personalised, hybrid A.I. applied sciences for customers.
The latest collaboration between Intel and AMD marks a strategic alignment between the 2 {industry} giants, to place them as the highest producers of x86-based chips and outpace rivals like Nvidia. Curiously, it seems Intel is now betting on AMD’s latest success to stay on the core of computing innovation for years to come back—highlighting a big shift within the dynamics of the tech world rivalry.
