Intel unveils new AI PC processors and platforms at MWC 2024

Intel has previewed its new Xeon processors and edge platform at MWC Barcelona 2024.

The company said its new Granite Rapids-D Xeon processer, which features built-in AI acceleration and the latest generation of P-cores, will come to market in 2025.

"This platform will deliver significant gains in performance and power efficiency utilising integrated vRAN boost acceleration and other architectural and feature enhancements," Intel's VP and GM of network and edge solutions Dan Rodriguez said in a webcast for global media.

The 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors with Intel vRAN Boost were announced at MWC 2023, which Intel said deliver up to twice the capacity for virtual radio access network (vRAN) workloads compared with the previous generation.

Intel said Silicon is currently sampling Granite Rapids-D and Samsung has demonstrated a first-call at their research and development lab in Suwon, South Korea.

Ericsson has also demonstrated a first-call validation in the Ericsson-Intel joint lab in Santa Clara, California.

Intel is also working with Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Lenovo, Red Hat, Wind River and other partners to ensure market readiness. 

Intel vRAN AI Development Kit

Intel announced early availability to select partners for its vRAN AI Development Kit which "is designed to help operators and developers build, train, optimise and deploy AI models for various use cases," Rodriguez said.

It includes software with AI capabilities and 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors’ built-in AI acceleration, power management and enhance elementary capabilities.

"With all this, operators can use the kit to dynamically reconfigure the network on the fly to save costs, get more value from their infrastructure and to support new revenue streams. And again, you can do all of this on general purpose servers using Intel Xeon processors," Rodriguez said.

Intel Xeon processor Sierra Forest

Also showcased was Intel's new Sierra Forest Xeon processor that will launch later in 2024 and "expands Intel's CPU roadmap by offering up to 288 efficiency cores, or E-cores, on a single chip and is well suited for 5G core workloads," Rodriguez said.

"Sierra Forest helps with just what operators need for greater efficiency, and what I'm most excited about is it will drive 2.7X performance per rack improvement."

Intel Edge Platform

The company announced its Intel Edge Platform that "enables enterprises to develop, to deploy, to run and to manage...edge applications on standard hardware at scale and with cloud like simplicity," Intel's VP and GM of network and edge Pallavi Mahajan said in a webcast for global media.

Available later this quarter, the platform provides support for heterogeneous components for lower TCO and zero-touch, policy-based management of infrastructure and applications, and AI across a fleet of edge nodes with a single pane of glass.

“Intel is delivering innovations for our partners and their customers across network, edge and enterprises to modernise their networks, monetise new services at the edge, and bring AI everywhere,” said Sachin Katti, senior vice president and general manager of the network and edge group at Intel.

“Intel’s network and edge-optimised SOC strategy uniquely integrates general purpose compute and acceleration for networking, AI and vRAN workloads, and we are announcing market-leading next generation products for 5G core with Sierra Forest and 5G vRAN with Granite Rapids-D.”