Intel and Google will deepen their collaboration on AI infrastructure development.
The vendors, which have worked together for some time, described the agreement as a “multi-year collaboration,” although no specifics of the financials involved were provided.
The arrangement covers two separate areas. First, Intel’s Xeon processors will continue to power Google Cloud infrastructure across AI, inference and general-purpose workloads. Google has used a variety of different Xeon processors for a number of years. At the same time, the vendors also confirmed they will expand the co-development of ASIC-based custom infrastructure processing units (IPUs).
The IPU move is designed to reduce some of the data center burden on CPUs (central processing units). The programmable accelerators can offload networking, storage and security functions from host CPUs — and this, Intel said, delivers greater efficiency and more predictable performance across large AI environments, enabling Google Cloud to scale without increasing the complexity of its systems.
The increased role of IPUs is particularly timely, given that concern has been growing in recent weeks about potential shortages of CPUs due to their spiraling use in AI data centers, diverting manufacturing capacity away from consumer products, such as PCs, for which they have traditionally been made.
“AI is reshaping how infrastructure is built and scaled. Scaling AI requires more than accelerators — it requires balanced systems. CPUs and IPUs are central to delivering the performance, efficiency and flexibility modern AI workloads demand,” said in a release.
After a difficult period for Intel, which saw the chipmaker shed several thousand jobs thousand jobs last year, the vendor’s fortunes have picked up with a couple of high-profile deals over the past few months.
In September, Nvidia said it would invest $5 billion in its longstanding rival to develop custom data center and PC products.
And earlier this week, Intel revealed that it would play a key role in Elon Musk’s ambitious Terafab project to produce chips for SpaceX, xAI and Tesla in Texas.
