In a shocking announcement, Intel has confirmed that former
Radeon Technologies Group head Raja Koduri will join the company as a chief
architect and senior vice president of its newly-formed Core and Visual
Computing Group. In that role, Intel says Koduri will bolster Intel's
leadership in integrated graphics processors and—incredibly—complement those
products with "high-end discrete graphics solutions for a broad range of
computing segments."
With what is sure to be a wide-ranging mandate, Intel says
Koduri will be responsible for delivering "differentiated IP across
computing, graphics, media, imaging, and machine intelligence capabilities for
the client and data center segments, artificial intelligence, and emerging
opportunities like edge computing."
My jaw now sports a third bruise from hitting various flat,
hard surfaces this week. Although we're likely a long way from seeing shipping
products shaped by Koduri's team, Intel seems to be taking an incredibly
pointed and aggressive step forward in challenging Nvidia's white-hot energy in
machine intelligence and massively parallel computing applications.
In the near term, Koduri's influence could help to bring
much-needed order to Intel's AI and visual-computing efforts, which have until
now been scattered across a range of internal projects like the Xeon Phi
accelerator and external acquisitions like Movidius and Nervana. Although those
technologies are all exciting and potentially important on their own, the
proceedings that have led to their home under Intel's big blue umbrella have
all felt a bit disordered.
Koduri undoubtedly has a clear vision for the future of GPUs
and massively parallel computing that's independent of any one company or
technology, and Intel will be fortunate to have that vision on its bench of
talent going forward.
Although machine learning and visual computing are perhaps
the most important challenges he'll face, Koduri's hire also suggests that
Intel is ready to fully embrace the excitement around PC gaming that's
continued to strengthen even as the broader PC market has contracted quarter
after quarter for multiple years in a row.
Many a budding gamer has likely used an Intel IGP to dip
their toe into Dota 2 or League of Legends, but the company has never been able
to hold onto that excitement as that same gamer sets their eyes on
higher-resolution displays, higher refresh rates, higher-quality graphics, and
the accompanying bottomless thirst for pixel-pushing power that those gaming
experiences require. Assuming I'm reading Intel's press release correctly,
that's all set to change.
Koduri's expertise leading teams that have produced those
high-end graphics products, combined with Intel's massive resources,
world-class process technologies, and an apparent newfound commitment to
producing high-end discrete graphics processors, has the potential to be an
epochal shift in the balance of power among Intel, Nvidia, and AMD.
Presuming Intel puts its Carolina Reapers where its mouth
is, we could see a remarkable reshuffling of the names on the chips that power
high-performance PCs. The only question is how soon that new era will dawn, but
one thing is for sure: the road to that point will be long, contentious, and
above all, exciting. I can't wait to see what happens next.
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