GeraldThe gauntlet has been thrown.
Intel’s Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger called out his industry competitor for claiming that processor tech like Intel’s is waning in an era of artificial intelligence.
Gelsinger made the following remark as he unveiled Intel’s new Gaudi, Lunar Lake, and Xeon products on stage at Computex 2024 in Taipei.
“Unlike what Jensen would have you believe, Moore’s Law is alive and well.”
But what could have precipitated this response?
With the industry’s ongoing shift from general-purpose computing, which relied mainly on CPUs (Intel’s strength), to accelerated computing (Nvidia’s expertise). This new approach requires GPUs and specialized chips to deliver the necessary performance and efficiency for resource-intensive applications such as generative AI and large language models.
While Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has not addressed the topic head-on, he has alluded to the lack of purpose around CPUs, during a recent earnings call.
“There’s just no reason to update with more CPUs when you can’t fundamentally and dramatically enhance its throughput like you used to. And so you have to accelerate everything. This is what Nvidia has been pioneering for some time.”
Moore’s Law is the observation made by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, in 1965 that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every two years. This doubling leads to an exponential increase in computing power, while the cost of production remains relatively stable.
The challenge, however, is that as transistors get smaller, you can fit more of them onto a single chip. However, this increased density leads to higher temperatures, making it more difficult to keep the chip cool leading to poor performance.
Grappling with this challenge is something that Intel and Gelsinger are facing at this point in time. But with the increase in AI computing demands, we’re hopeful Intel has something up its sleeves as the industry shifts toward this current hyped-up product because more competition is always good for the consumer.
Gerald currently straddles between his love of video games and board gaming. There’s nothing that interests him more than trying out the newest and fanciest gadget in town as well. He dreams of publishing a board game sometime in the future!
HSALS
