When human beings enter the era of data as the core driving force, the computing power brought by a single hardware architecture is doomed to be unable to carry the rush of data torrents, and at the same time, data diversity is also doomed to the diversity of computing architectures. Therefore, as early as 2018, Intel, which is constantly transforming into a data service company, has been forward-looking and realized that the future is an era that needs to use different types of architectures to serve different workloads and thus greatly increase computing power. Thus, the XPU vision was born.
· XPU: Intel's sword to deal with the age of data torrents
XPU, in simple terms, is to include all the architectures such as CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, accelerators, etc., and to make their combinations diversified and liberal.
For most people, "Intel = PC processor". However, if you dig deeper, you will find that this is only one of intel's many businesses, but not all of them. In recent years, Intel has made comprehensive breakthroughs in CPU, FPGA, cloud computing, edge computing, data centers and other fields, and the GPUs in the XPU category are about to be launched in a new posture and bring great impact to the traditional GPU field.
An important part of the XPU strategy for high-performance GPUs
At the just-concluded CES 2022 show, Intel announced the latest developments in Intel's Iris graphics card codenamed Alchemy, which can be summarized as: shipped, widely adopted, and supported by advanced features.
It is not difficult to see that the promotion of Intel Ruixuan graphics cards is smooth and natural, and only after the terminal products land, the majority of users can experience the third powerful force in the GPU field.
Intel Iris is a brand of high-performance graphics products built for consumers, covering hardware, software, and services. The announcement of the latest developments in Intel's Iris Graphics fully demonstrates Intel's strong determination and commitment to creating a superior experience for players and creators around the world, and the confidence of the entire industry in Intel to usher in a new era of high-performance consumer graphics. At present, more than 50 new mobile devices and desktops will use Intel Iris graphics, covering the world's leading OEMs such as Acer, Asus, Blue Sky, Dell, Gigabyte, Haier, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, MSI and NEC.
In fact, from the moment Raja M. Koduri joined Intel, the breakthrough and leap of Intel GPU, the impact on the traditional GPU market, and the transformation of the future GPU industry ecology have laid the groundwork. At the same time, this is also the established path that the arrow has to send on the string.
From architecture, hardware to software Intel creates a complete GPU ecosystem
A key element that has to be mentioned in this process is Intel's revolutionary Xe architecture.
Intel Xe architecture spans multiple compute and graphics segments and strengthens Intel's broad data-centric portfolio, providing leading products for the broadest range of compute workloads that meet the combined needs of their scaling, vector, matrix, and spatial compute architectures. Xe architecture GPUs are extended into four levels, namely Xe-LP, Xe-HP, Xe-HPC, and Xe-HPG. The Alchemy announced by CES is a high-performance independent GPU for mass consumers based on Xe-HPG.
On the road to entering the field of high-performance GPUs, NVIDIA and AMD are two strong opponents that cannot be bypassed. However, compared with the two major GPU manufacturers, Intel has a deeper foundation in CPU, storage, software and other fields, and different hardware can be better integrated together, so whether it is on desktops, notebooks, or other devices, Intel can provide users with a completely consistent experience, which may be difficult for NVIDIA and AMD to do.
In addition to hardware, what many people don't know is that Intel is also a "software company." This is also the fundamental reason why the vast majority of software runs more smoothly and stably on Intel hardware platforms. Every year, Intel invests heavily in software, and for the new high-performance GPU field, Intel spares no effort to achieve software-side support.
Take, for example, the area of gaming and creative software with the most widespread use of high-performance GPUs. Intel has worked with major developers over the years to expand the ecosystem of Intel®Spig Graphics in gaming and application software.
Intel Iris Graphics has industry-leading features that provide perfect support for technologies such as ray tracing and AI-driven XeSS hypersampling.
At the same time, Intel has also introduced the innovative Deep Link Hypercoding Technology, which extends Intel's years of platform leadership and can aggregate multiple processing engines through a common software framework to further enhance the gaming and creative experience. With this technical support, PCs are able to provide users with higher performance and longer battery life across a range of critical usage scenarios. At present, Deep Link hypercoding technology has implemented support for DaVinci Resolve software, which can call integrated graphics cards and discrete graphics cards to encode a video stream simultaneously, thereby accelerating creation.
In the field of games, Intel has partnered with game developers to advance the implementation of XeSS technology, such as Kojima Studios' Death Stranding: Director's Cut Edition. The game is also optimized for Intel's 12th Generation Core processor cores for a better gaming experience. Currently, game studios committed to supporting the technology include: 505 Games, Codemasters, EXOR Studios, Fishlabs, Hashbane, IOI, Illfonic, Kojima Productions, Massive Work Studio, PUBG Studios, Techland, Ubisoft, and Wonder People.
Build a complete industry ecology to impact the traditional GPU field
In terms of building an industry ecosystem, Intel has always been handy. Through The Sharp Torch core display and the Sharp High Performance Discrete Graphics, Intel has built a complete and powerful GPU ecosystem with device manufacturers (OEMs), game developers, and software developers, which will have a huge impact on the traditional high-performance GPU field.
In 2018, in line with the XPU vision, Intel proposed a "software first" strategy and launched the oneAPI project. In recent years, as Intel has expanded its boundaries, the software-first strategy and the importance of oneAPI have gradually been reflected. It simplifies programming for a variety of extreme engines across CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, artificial intelligence, and other accelerators. This also makes Intel's promotion in the GPU field a horse flat.
Combined with Intel's rich experience in ecological construction, Intel's high-performance GPUs will accelerate the popularization, and there is no growing demand for computing power to release powerful computing power, which in turn will bring more powerful driving force to areas including ordinary consumers, creative productivity, games, artificial intelligence and other fields.
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