Intel nervana is intel's first deep learning processor

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has announced in a blog post today that he will be the company's first neural network processor, the Intel Nervana.

Intel Nervana is the company's first processor for artificial intelligence

Intel Nervana is the brainchild of Nervana Systems, a company Intel acquired for around $ 400 million in 2016. At the time, Nervana had developed an open source deep learning framework called neon. From neon, Nervana developed Nervana Cloud, which was optimized to run on Nvidia's Titan X GPUs.

Also at the time of acquisition, Nervana was developing a custom ASIC called the Nervana Engine that was claimed to outperform Nvidia Maxwell generation GPUs by a factor of 10.

Best processors on the market (2017)

Presumably, the new Intel processor is based on the work of the Nervana Engine, but it is unclear whether it achieved its performance target. A blog post by Carey Kloss, VP of Hardware at Nervana, in 2016 described some aspects of the processor. It used high-bandwidth memory, now quite common on high-end GPUs. Based on the official Nervana image shown above, it appears that some form of HBM is still being used.

Intel Nervana promises to revolutionize artificial intelligence computing in countless industries. Using Intel Nervana technology, companies will be able to develop entirely new classes of AI applications that maximize the amount of data processed and enable customers to find more insight, transforming their businesses…

We have several generations of Intel Nervana products in the pipeline that will deliver higher performance and enable new levels of scalability for AI models. This sets us on the path to exceed the goal we set last year of achieving 100 times higher AI performance by 2020.

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