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The whole of the article rests on a single claim that, "Several trusted sources say that later today, likely at Supercomputing 16, the company will announce th

The whole of the article rests on a single claim that, "Several trusted sources say that later today, likely at Supercomputing 16, the company will announce they have pulled in Purley aka Skylake-EP Xeons, to this year and will sell them to two key customers." Customers which the article goes on to name as Google and Facebook. Although, I cannot find any corroborating evidence to support this claim. Supercomuting 16 is now over, and I see no other articles detailing how "Intel is playing favorites with Skylake Xeons in a way that will shatter the industry status quo." SemiAccurate is literally the only site I can find professing this scenario. I'm not saying it's necessarily untrue, but I'd like a lot more information on why it's just Google and Facebook. - Was there a silent bidding war on early access? - Did Intel simply choose two major customers based on previous sales? - Were Google and Facebook specifically targeted to exploit FPGA for AI development? The list goes on ...

stuntprogrammer 10y ago
One tidbit is Google themselves saying they'll roll skylake out in cloud early next year. https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/11/power-up-your-Google-Compute-Engine-VMs-with-Intels-next-generation-Custom-Cloud-Xeon-Processor.html?m=1 https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/11/power-up-your-G...
pktgen 10y ago
> Customers which the article goes on to name as Google and Facebook. Although, I cannot find any corroborating evidence to support this claim. Supercomuting 16 is now over, and I see no other articles detailing how "Intel is playing favorites with Skylake Xeons in a way that will shatter the industry status quo." SemiAccurate is literally the only site I can find professing this scenario. SemiAccurate has a pretty good track record with these kinds of rumors and analysis. They're not right 100% of the time, but they're right enough that it's clear they aren't just making things up.
- lgats 10y ago
  You might say they're semi-accurate?
RandomOpinion 10y ago
Looking at the article date (Nov 17) and the dates for Supercomputing '16 (ended Nov 18), if Intel had actually announced preferential release to specific customers, it would have been confirmed already. Combing through Google News, there doesn't appear to be any article covering Intel's announcements at SC16 that mentions such a preferential release. So, it's probably just a false rumor.
- hga 10y ago
  Would the screwed companies that had been promised these chips immediately go to the public? And with Thanksgiving, I'm not sure there's been enough time for it to further leak out. On the other hand, it's a claim that Intel will do something that's both extraordinary and extraordinarily stupid for the long term, so we indeed need some more proof.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Apparently not: https://newsroom.intel.com/press-kits/intel-at-sc16/ https://newsroom.intel.com/press-kits/intel-at-sc16/ Although I would be really surprised if this was something they actually announced, it doesn't really help Intel to announce something like that and as the article points out it can anger other customers. That said I have worked in Intel's System Validation group which was responsible for determining when a new chip was ready for general availability. I have directly witnessed Intel's preferential customer treatment where Intel allocated all of their processor production on a new processor to their largest customer(s). In my case they were selling Nehalem chips to Dell long (6 - 9 months) before others like NetApp could get them to start building filers with them. I have also worked in the platforms group at Google so I have an idea of the scale of their hardware effort and how many chips such a deal with Google might entail. As a result, I think the actual story is this - Intel got back first silicon that was acceptably functional on the new parts. This kicked off a discussion between their top customers and the potential early availability of parts. Those customers did a calculation on what advantage they might get by getting hardware early. Then Intel went down their customer list from most strategic to least strategic and offered them access. Either Google or Facebook was on the top of that list (likely Google) and they bought some, but not all of the production capacity, and then Intel offered the remainder to the second customer on the list who agreed to take the rest. Everyone else has to wait until the part is released to general production in all of its target fabs. Further, it won't cause Intel any grief because all their customers know that the ones with the most volume get the most "love" from Intel. And the situation might be different the next time around.

stuntprogrammer 10y ago

One tidbit is Google themselves saying they'll roll skylake out in cloud early next year. https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/11/power-up-your-Google-Compute-Engine-VMs-with-Intels-next-generation-Custom-Cloud-Xeon-Processor.html?m=1 https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/11/power-up-your-G...

pktgen 10y ago

> Customers which the article goes on to name as Google and Facebook. Although, I cannot find any corroborating evidence to support this claim. Supercomuting 16 is now over, and I see no other articles detailing how "Intel is playing favorites with Skylake Xeons in a way that will shatter the industry status quo." SemiAccurate is literally the only site I can find professing this scenario. SemiAccurate has a pretty good track record with these kinds of rumors and analysis. They're not right 100% of the time, but they're right enough that it's clear they aren't just making things up.

lgats 10y ago
You might say they're semi-accurate?

RandomOpinion 10y ago

Looking at the article date (Nov 17) and the dates for Supercomputing '16 (ended Nov 18), if Intel had actually announced preferential release to specific customers, it would have been confirmed already. Combing through Google News, there doesn't appear to be any article covering Intel's announcements at SC16 that mentions such a preferential release. So, it's probably just a false rumor.

hga 10y ago
Would the screwed companies that had been promised these chips immediately go to the public? And with Thanksgiving, I'm not sure there's been enough time for it to further leak out. On the other hand, it's a claim that Intel will do something that's both extraordinary and extraordinarily stupid for the long term, so we indeed need some more proof.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Apparently not: https://newsroom.intel.com/press-kits/intel-at-sc16/ https://newsroom.intel.com/press-kits/intel-at-sc16/ Although I would be really surprised if this was something they actually announced, it doesn't really help Intel to announce something like that and as the article points out it can anger other customers. That said I have worked in Intel's System Validation group which was responsible for determining when a new chip was ready for general availability. I have directly witnessed Intel's preferential customer treatment where Intel allocated all of their processor production on a new processor to their largest customer(s). In my case they were selling Nehalem chips to Dell long (6 - 9 months) before others like NetApp could get them to start building filers with them. I have also worked in the platforms group at Google so I have an idea of the scale of their hardware effort and how many chips such a deal with Google might entail. As a result, I think the actual story is this - Intel got back first silicon that was acceptably functional on the new parts. This kicked off a discussion between their top customers and the potential early availability of parts. Those customers did a calculation on what advantage they might get by getting hardware early. Then Intel went down their customer list from most strategic to least strategic and offered them access. Either Google or Facebook was on the top of that list (likely Google) and they bought some, but not all of the production capacity, and then Intel offered the remainder to the second customer on the list who agreed to take the rest. Everyone else has to wait until the part is released to general production in all of its target fabs. Further, it won't cause Intel any grief because all their customers know that the ones with the most volume get the most "love" from Intel. And the situation might be different the next time around.