When it arrived in January 2023, Ponte Vecchio was essentially the most formidable information heart GPU Intel had ever developed. Regardless of its relative infancy, prodigious dimension, and energy, a brand new report states that Intel has already alerted its companions that it is begun the “sunsetting” course of for the chip. This transfer will permit Intel to refocus its efforts within the rapidly altering world of high-performance computing (HPC).
Information of Intel’s plans comes from Serve the House, which states Intel will likely be shifting its manufacturing capability for Ponte Vecchio over to its Gaudi 2 and three accelerators—extra of a direct competitor to accelerators from Nvidia and AMD. As well as, Intel will even streamline its HPC roadmap a bit by ditching Ponte Vecchio and pinning its hopes on Falcon Shores as a substitute, due in 2025. Ponte Vecchio was designed for the Aurora supercomputer at present buzzing alongside deep throughout the Argonne Nationwide Laboratory, the place it simply grew to become the world’s second exascale system behind AMD’s Frontier.
Intel was means forward of the curve with Ponte Vecchio, however late to market, which finally most likely contributed to its brief lifespan.
Credit score: Intel
Ponte Vecchio was first proven to the general public in 2019 and was an unfathomably difficult design on the time. It options 47 particular person chiplets utilizing three manufacturing nodes: Intel 7, TSMC N5, and TSMC N7. All of the chiplets are linked horizontally and vertically by way of Intel’s EMIB and Foveros applied sciences, making it a harbinger (on the time) of how vital chiplet designs would turn out to be within the HPC World. On account of its complexity, the manufacturing of Ponte Vecchio was delayed. Although it was initially anticipated to reach in 2022, it did not ship till a yr later and was initially designed to go head-to-head with Nvidia’s Ampere-based A100 accelerators. Nevertheless, by the point it grew to become an actual product, Nvidia had its Hopper-based H100 accelerator transport in quantity.
Intel is pinning its AI accelerator hopes on its Gaudi 2/3 accelerators within the close to time period whereas planning for Falcon Shores subsequent yr. The corporate is probably going hoping to achieve a foothold within the burgeoning AI market with its Gaudi 3 GPU after which use that enthusiasm to propel Falcon Shores to success with clients subsequent yr. Intel had initially deliberate to launch a CPU+GPU “XPU” chip named Rialto Bridge to exchange Ponte Vecchio in information facilities in 2024 however introduced final yr it was scrapping that concept to concentrate on Falcon Shores as a discrete GPU product as a substitute. Falcon Shores is rumored to soak up the know-how in Gaudi 3 so the corporate can have one product line for AI and HPC, however Intel has but to verify it.
