Intel unveils AI processors for enterprise servers and new VPro PCs

Intel showcased its focus on AI across diverse domains, unveiling new AI-focused platforms, solutions, and services at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024.

Among them were the latest Intel vPro processors for enterprise PCs, armed with better AI processing. These announcements follow Intel’s big event last week where it disclosed its progress on contract chip manufacturing with its Intel Foundry business.

Over 65 of Intel’s key customers and partners demonstrated cutting-edge systems and solutions, spanning hardware, software, and services, aimed at modernizing and monetizing future infrastructure.

Intel introduced the future Intel Xeon processor, code-named Granite Rapids-D, featuring built-in AI acceleration, with first-call validation alongside key partners.

Collaborating with 5G core software suppliers, Intel offered a glimpse of its next-gen Intel Xeon processor for 5G core, code-named Sierra Forest, showcasing 2.7 times performance per rack improvement.

Intel showed off the Intel Edge Platform, an open and modular software platform, empowering enterprises to build, deploy, and manage edge and AI solutions with cloud-like simplicity. Intel also showed off the latest Intel vPro platform, extending AI benefits to commercial designs.

In an era emphasizing technological evolution, Intel aims to equip its customers, partners, and the broader ecosystem with solutions that leverage AI and automation. The focus is on improving total cost of ownership (TCO), operational efficiency, and introducing new innovations and services.

“Intel is delivering innovations for our partners and their customers across network, edge and enterprises to modernize their networks, monetize new services at the edge, and bring AI everywhere,” said Sachin Katti, senior vice president of the Network and Edge Group at Intel, in a statement. “Intel’s network- and edge-optimized SOC strategy uniquely integrates general purpose compute and acceleration for networking, AI and vRAN workloads, and we are announcing market-leading next generation products for 5G core with Sierra Forest and 5G vRAN with Granite Rapids-D.”

The chip maker showed off 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors with Intel vRAN Boost (Sapphire Rapids EE), which can double the capacity for vRAN workloads compared to the previous generation, offering a 20% reduction in vRAN compute power consumption.

Intel also showed a glimpse into the future with Granite Rapids-D, a Xeon processor featuring the latest P-cores, promising significant gains in performance and power efficiency for vRAN applications. Sampling is underway. Intel unveiled the vRAN AI Development Kit, enabling partners to build, train, optimize, and deploy AI models for vRAN use cases.

The company also gave a preview of the next-gen Intel Xeon processor Sierra Forest, set to launch later in the year. It uses up to 288 Efficient-cores (E-cores) on a single chip. It targets 5G core workloads, emphasizing improved performance and power efficiency. The company promised broad availability and industry adoption of Intel Infrastructure Power Manager software, which enables operators to reduce CPU power by an average of 30% while maintaining key telco performance metrics.

Designed to meet the evolving needs of enterprises at the edge, the Intel Edge Platform offers support for heterogeneous components, policy-based management, and built-in AI runtime with OpenVINO inference. Built on Intel’s vast expertise from over 90,000 edge deployments, the platform is set to be generally available later this quarter.

Intel and Microsoft are set to announce extended benefits of the AI PC to commercial designs on day two of MWC 2024, emphasizing enhanced AI experiences and productivity for businesses of all sizes.

Intel’s Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) will launch two new radio macro and mMIMO Enablement Packages, along with Intel Precision Time Protocol Servo, offering flexible, low-power, low-latency, high-throughput solutions for emerging spaces like vRAN, OpenRAN, 6G, and AI.