Intel also announced new branding for its data center CPU portfolio, with the Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest chips now branded as the new ‘Xeon 6’ family. These chips are expected to come to market this year and will support the new performance-boosting standardized MXFP4 data format. Intel is also developing an AI NIC ASIC for Ultra Ethernet Consortium-compliant networking and an AI NIC chiplet for its future XPU and Guadi 3 processors.
Key takeaways:
- Intel has announced its new Gaudi 3 AI processors, which it claims offer up to 1.7X the training performance, 50% better inference, and 40% better efficiency than Nvidia’s market-leading H100 processors, but for significantly less money.
- The Gaudi 3 marks the third generation of the Gaudi accelerator, which was the fruit of Intel’s $2 billion acquisition of Habana Labs in 2019. The Gaudi accelerators will enter high-volume production and general availability in Q3 of 2024 in OEM systems.
- Intel's Gaudi 3 leverages the same architecture and underlying fundamental principles as its predecessor but comes with a more advanced TSMC 5nm process than the TSMC 7nm node Intel uses for the Gaudi 2 accelerator.
- Intel also announced new branding for its data center CPU portfolio, with the Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest chips now branded as the new ‘Xeon 6’ family. Those chips are on track to come to market this year and add support for the new performance-boosting standardized MXFP4 data format.