Facebook and Intel are joining forces for artificial intelligence

The future of technology is artificial intelligence, but before it can radically change the world, we need to develop proper hardware that can give the machines the ability to learn. To that end, The Wall Street Journal reports that Intel is working with Facebook and a number of other companies on a new processor called Nervana --also known as the Nervana Neural Network Processor. The chip is the result of work done by Intel Nervana, and was designed to accelerate the AI learning process known as deep learning, in which a computer is taught to recognize objects, patterns, speech, and complex concepts so that it can mimic the same learning capabilities exhibited by humans. Intel's partners are helping "fine tune" Nervana, while Facebook has started taking a deeper look at the processor and realizing its capabilities. "[They said], 'Hey, this really could change the way we think about artificial intelligence. And help us really steer how we build software and hardware," said Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich at The WSJ D.Live conference on Tuesday.