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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 18 2017, @04:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the The-singularity-is-coming!-The-singularity-is-coming! dept.

Intel will release a machine learning chip intended to compete with Nvidia's Tesla chips and Google's TPUs (Tensor Processing Units):

When the AI boom came a-knocking, Intel wasn't around to answer the call. Now, the company is attempting to reassert its authority in the silicon business by unveiling a new family of chips designed especially for artificial intelligence: the Intel Nervana Neural Network Processor family, or NNP for short.

The NNP family is meant as a response to the needs of machine learning, and is destined for the data center, not your PC. Intel's CPUs may still be a stalwart of server stacks (by some estimates, it has a 96 percent market share in data centers), but the workloads of contemporary AI are much better served by the graphical processors or GPUs coming from firms like Nvidia and ARM. Consequently, demand for these companies' chips has skyrocketed. (Nvidia's revenue is up 56 percent year on year.) Google has got in on the action, designing its own silicon named the Tensor Processing Unit to power its cloud computing business, while new firms like the UK-based Graphcore are also rushing to fill the gap.

Also at Engadget, TechCrunch, and CNET.

Previously: Nervana Deep Learning Chip


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday October 18 2017, @06:40PM (2 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday October 18 2017, @06:40PM (#584042) Journal

    The NNP family is meant as a response to the needs of machine learning, and is destined for the data center, not your PC.

    Machine learning isn't even well defined yet, but largely means simply pattern recognition trained by feeding it examples.

    Make no mistake about it, what it is aimed at is facial recognition. Its being fancied up with generic sounding names. But its all about facial reco, based on all your facebook pictures - your selfies and others that include you.

    Sure it will have uses in text analysis, DNA, maybe even in DDOS attack analysis. But the push now is for control and tracking of people.

    --
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @07:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @07:14PM (#584060)

    It sounds like the man who sold the world facial recognition went ahead and put it in a heart-shaped box.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @12:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @12:09AM (#584264)

    Phew, just as long is it's not cock pics. I mean, not that I send a lot of cock pics but I mean, privacy right? Am I right?