As Intel continues to try to turn itself around, its CEO promised that the company will start producing a new type of chip, one that has been made very popular by rival Nvidia.
At the Cisco AI Summit on Tuesday, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan announced that the company will start producing graphics processing units (GPUs). These are more specialized processors, compared to the CPUs Intel traditionally produces, and are used for gaming and tasks like training artificial intelligence models.
TechCrunch reached out to Intel for more information.
The project will be overseen by Kevork Kechichian, the executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s data center group, according to reporting from Reuters. Kechichian was hired in September among a slew of new engineer-focused hires.
Intel also hired Eric Demmers for the effort in January. Demmers was previously at Qualcomm for more than 13 years, most recently serving as a senior vice president of engineering.
This initiative seems to be in relatively early stages as Tan said the company plans to develop its strategy around customer demands and needs.
While Nvidia didn’t invent the GPU, that specific kind of chip has played a large role in its success. Its GPUs for AI systems are so advanced and popular, the chipmaker currently holds a commanding market lead.
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It’s interesting to see Intel expand into this area now as Tan said the company would be consolidating and focusing on its core businesses when he took the helm as CEO last March. While GPUs are still semiconductors, of course, this is still a notable expansion.
