At the quarterly earnings conference, Intel CEO Lip Bu-Tan called the development of the company’s AI competencies one of the key conditions for the revival of the business. From now on, the company will focus on an integrated approach, which implies selling ready-made server systems and software to clients, as its competitor Nvidia does.
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At the same time, CFO David Zinsner added that Intel will refrain from acquiring other companies in the near future. Historically, Intel has tried to gain access to computing accelerators by purchasing startups such as Habana Labs and Nervana, but this approach has not justified itself. Accordingly, Intel’s efforts to develop the AI systems market will rely on the corporation’s own resources.
«We will take a holistic approach to rethinking our product portfolio to optimize it for new and future AI workloads. Our goal is to become the platform of choice for our customers. This will require a radical change in the way we design and develop, as well as successfully anticipating our customers’ needs,” said Lip-Bu Tan. Intel will not be able to quickly fix the situation in this market segment, as the company’s CEO admits. It will have to review its existing products to identify the most suitable for the development of AI systems and robotics. Edge computing will also be a focus of Intel’s strategy.
Experts interviewed by Reuters, however, warn that there is little opportunity for Intel to gain a foothold in the highly competitive AI market. First, it is dominated by Nvidia, which is unlikely to give way to newcomers. Second, cloud players like Amazon and Google are creating their own computing components that best suit their own needs.