The dragon awakes! That was the key message from the Intel AI Everywhere event last Thursday, where the company launched the 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors for the data centre and the new family of Intel® Core Ultra processors for the AI PC.
Following the success of this major architectural upgrade, Intel is now well positioned to regain much of the momentum that it has lost over the past few years. Judging by their feature sets and performance numbers, both processor families look to be very competitive in their target segments. Watch out for benchmark bunfights galore as Intel dukes it out against AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm to reassert its market leadership!
As entertaining as they may be, benchmarks form only a smart part of the arena. The key battles will be fought at the PC OEM and Taiwan PC manufacturing levels, where despite its recent missteps Intel remains extremely strong. It is no accident that the company was able to announce that Intel Core Ultra mobile processors will power more than 230 AI PCs from partners including Acer, ASUS, Dell, Dynabook, Gigabyte, Google Chromebook, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft Surface, MSI, and Samsung.
Intel’s manufacturing scale combined with such extensive customer support make it a particularly attractive partner for software developers looking to bring new AI applications to market. No wonder the company has already signed up over a hundred ISVs so far for its AI PC Acceleration Program.
Now that all the hoopla surrounding the launch has died down, Intel will also have to draw on its traditional strength in building new markets if it is to drive global consumer and commercial end-user demand for the AI PC. Intel has an excellent track record in this regard with the Intel Inside and Centrino programs being just two examples.
It is going to be fascinating to see if Intel can repeat those feats and bring back some much-needed life back to the PC market over the next few years.
Long time technology industry fan here in Taiwan.
