Intel unveils AI chip to take on Nvidia

Intel on Tuesday introduced its latest artificial intelligence chip, Gaudi 3, to meet the growing demand for big AI models.

Intel claims its latest Gaudi 3 chip is more power-efficient than Nvidia H100. “In comparison to Nvidia H100, Intel Gaudi 3 is projected to deliver 50% faster time-to-train on average3 across Llama2 models with 7B and 13B parameters, and GPT-3 175B parameter model. Additionally, Intel Gaudi 3 accelerator inference throughput is projected to outperform the H100 by 50% on average,” the chipmaker says.

Intel Gaudi 3 will be available to OEMs – including Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and Supermicro – in the second quarter of 2024.

This comes at a time when enterprises are looking to scale GenAI from pilot to production.

“Innovation is advancing at an unprecedented pace, all enabled by silicon – and every company is quickly becoming an AI company,” says Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. “Intel is bringing AI everywhere across the enterprise, from the PC to the data center to the edge. Our latest Gaudi, Xeon and Core Ultra platforms are delivering a cohesive set of flexible solutions tailored to meet the changing needs of our customers and partners and capitalise on the immense opportunities ahead.”

Intel outlined its strategy for open scalable AI systems, including hardware, software, frameworks and tools. Intel says its approach enables a broad, open ecosystem of AI players to offer solutions that satisfy enterprise-specific GenAI needs. This includes equipment manufacturers, database providers, systems integrators, software and service providers, and others. It also allows enterprises to use the ecosystem partners and solutions that they already know and trust, the company says.

Intel listed enterprise customers and partners across industries to deploy Intel Gaudi accelerator solutions. This includes Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal’s AI model Krutim. “To pre-train and fine-tune its first India foundational model with generative capabilities in 10 languages, producing industry-leading price/performance versus market solutions. Krutrim is now pre-training a larger foundational model on an Intel Gaudi 2 cluster,” it says.

India’s second-largest software services provider Infosys had earlier announced a strategic collaboration to bring Intel technologies including 4th and 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors, Intel Gaudi 2 AI accelerators and Intel Core Ultra to Infosys Topaz – an AI-first set of services, solutions and platforms that accelerate business value using generative AI technologies.

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel also plans to leverage its rich telecom data to enhance its AI capabilities and improve the experiences of its customers. “The deployments will be in line with Airtel’s commitment to stay at the forefront of technological innovation and help drive new revenue streams in a rapidly evolving digital landscape,” says Intel.