In his Computex 2024 keynote address, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger showed that Intel is getting its mojo back after a painful period of restructuring with a wide array of announcements including the new Intel Xeon 6 for servers and the highly anticipated Lunar Lake AI PC chip, which is the company’s first processor to support Microsoft’s Copilot+ requirements.
The overarching theme of the keynote was how Intel has accelerated its product development timelines since Gelsinger took the helm. Its improving execution track record is a clear indication that the company is moving past its recent challenges and boosting its competitiveness in the market.
One of the standout announcements of the keynote was the introduction of the Intel Xeon 6 architecture, only half a year after the launch of the 5th Generation Xeon. These new processors are designed with both efficiency and performance cores, catering to different types of workloads. The Intel Xeon 6 E-core, codenamed “Sierra Forest,” was officially launched at Computex and is targeted at addressing energy efficiency challenges in data centers. Intel Xeon 6 P-core processors, codenamed “Granite Rapids,” are designed for higher performance and are expected to be available by the end of the year.
In a tilt at Nvidia’s dominance in the data center, the Intel CEO highlighted the superior price/performance of Gaudi AI accelerators compared to the Nvidia H100 for training and inferencing large language models. An AI kit comprising eight Intel Gaudi 3 accelerators with a universal baseboard (UBB) is about two-thirds the cost of a comparable Nvidia H100 platform at a list price of $125,000. An equivalent Intel Gaudi 2 AI kit comes in at $65,000, one-third the cost of comparable competitive platforms.
The keynote’s most significant reveal was the Lunar Lake processor platform designed for AI PCs. Featuring a new CPU architecture, an enhanced Xe2 GPU, and an NPU with 48 TOPs, Lunar Lake is the first processor from Intel that meets Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI PC requirements. According to Intel, it also has high levels of power efficiency that make it competitive with Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon X Series products on that front as well, though no specific numbers were disclosed.
The Intel CEO also emphasized that the chip’s availability has now been moved forward to fall, ahead of the initially projected timeline, setting the stage for a holiday season clash with both Qualcomm and AMD in the Copilot+ AI PC laptop space. With 80 design wins compared to Qualcomm’s highly touted 22, Intel is well placed to achieve a significant share of the market.
Despite years of setbacks, Intel remains a major force in the PC industry, with extensive roots in the supplier ecosystem, close ties with OEMs and channel partners, and a widely recognized brand name. While Intel still has many hurdles to overcome, Pat Gelsinger’s keynote address at Computex 2024 showed that the company is on the right trajectory for future growth.
