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Intel isn't ballasted so much by chip fabrication for phone handsets. TSMC is. The few years of stagnation in the client computing segment coincided with early

Intel isn't ballasted so much by chip fabrication for phone handsets. TSMC is. The few years of stagnation in the client computing segment coincided with early delays in the 10nm transition. It's always easier to lay out big money for long-term projects when your business is strong, but that just wasn't the case for Intel around 2015 or so. Handsets were booming, as was parallelized GPU computing. TSMC was a natural beneficiary due to its customer base.

astrange 5y ago
Intel could have gotten into higher-end GPUs or AI processors; they have the demand, a GPU team, their management just wouldn't give them the physical space in any products to add it.
- WatchDog 5y ago
  They actually developed a discrete GPU starting around 2008, even demoed it a bit, but ended up canning the project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(microarchitecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(microarchitecture)
  - m_mueller 5y ago
    IMO this was plagued from the start, including the HPC accelerators (Xeon Phi or whatever those were called). Intel put too much emphasis on x86 compatibility and even then couldn't keep up with Nvidia, neither in performance nor software support, except for a few edge cases. Even back then, if you want to build a compute coprocessor, it needs to be a thoroughbred optimized for throughput at various floating point precisions depending on target market. Nowadays the entry bar is set at being able to reuse your ALUs at multiple bit widths to boost both NN and classic HPC applications with the same silicon.
- thg 5y ago
  > Intel could have gotten into higher-end GPUs They're supposedly working on it with Xe-HPG DG2. But knowing Intel and their shenanigans, I'll believe it when I see independent coverage and benchmarks.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    But notably, it’s being manufactured by TSMC...
  - ksec 5y ago
    I could never understand why Raja Koduri gets all the credit and press. ( Even in his ATI / AMD days ) And now coming close to 5 years at Intel. He has yet ship a single Discreet GPU. We will see how Xe GPU will turn out.
- bserge 5y ago

astrange 5y ago

Intel could have gotten into higher-end GPUs or AI processors; they have the demand, a GPU team, their management just wouldn't give them the physical space in any products to add it.

WatchDog 5y ago
They actually developed a discrete GPU starting around 2008, even demoed it a bit, but ended up canning the project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(microarchitecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(microarchitecture)
- m_mueller 5y ago
  IMO this was plagued from the start, including the HPC accelerators (Xeon Phi or whatever those were called). Intel put too much emphasis on x86 compatibility and even then couldn't keep up with Nvidia, neither in performance nor software support, except for a few edge cases. Even back then, if you want to build a compute coprocessor, it needs to be a thoroughbred optimized for throughput at various floating point precisions depending on target market. Nowadays the entry bar is set at being able to reuse your ALUs at multiple bit widths to boost both NN and classic HPC applications with the same silicon.
thg 5y ago
> Intel could have gotten into higher-end GPUs They're supposedly working on it with Xe-HPG DG2. But knowing Intel and their shenanigans, I'll believe it when I see independent coverage and benchmarks.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  But notably, it’s being manufactured by TSMC...
- ksec 5y ago
  I could never understand why Raja Koduri gets all the credit and press. ( Even in his ATI / AMD days ) And now coming close to 5 years at Intel. He has yet ship a single Discreet GPU. We will see how Xe GPU will turn out.
bserge 5y ago