Coming to the end of the first quarter of 2023, Intel’s Data Center and AI group is finding itself at an interesting inflection point – for reasons both good and bad. After repeated delays, Intel is finally shipping their Sapphire Rapids CPUs in high volumes this quarter as part of the 4th Generation Xeon Scalable lineup, all the while its successors are coming up very quickly. On the other hand, the GPU side of the business has hit a rough spot, with the unexpected cancelation of Rialto Bridge – what would have been Intel’s next Data Center GPU Max product. It hasn’t all been good news in the past few months for Intel’s beleaguered data center group, but it’s not all bad news, either.
It’s been just over a year since Intel last delivered a wholesale update on its DCAI product roadmaps, which were last refreshed at their 2022 investors meeting. So, given the sheer importance of the high margin group, as well as everything that has been going on in the past year – and will be going on over the next year – Intel is holding an investor webinar today to update investors (and the public at large) at the state of its DCAI product lineups. The event is being treated as a chance to recap what Intel has accomplished over recent months, as well as to lay out an updated roadmap for the DCAI group covering the next couple of years.
The high-level message Intel is looking to project is that the company is finally turning a corner in their critical data center business segment after some notable stumbles in 2021/2022. In the CPU space, despite the repeated Sapphire Rapids delays, Intel’s successive CPU projects remain on track, including their first all E-core Xeon processor. Meanwhile Intel’s FPGA and dedicated AI silicon (Gaudi) are similarly coming along, with new products hitting the market this year while others are taping-in.
