The Nervana Systems Chip That Will Let Intel Advance Its Deep Learning

Deep-learning artificial intelligence has mostly relied upon the general-purpose GPU hardware used in many other computing tasks. But Intel's recent acquisition of the startup Nervana Systems will give the tech giant ownership of a specialized chip designed specifically for deep learning AI applications. That could give Intel a huge lead in the race to develop next-generation artificial intelligence capable of swiftly finding patterns in huge data sets and learning through imitation. Nervana has leaned heavily on GPU hardware to build its own portfolio of deep-learning AI services for both companies and independent developers. But the startup has also been developing its own specialized deep-learning hardware, called Nervana Engine, that includes only the components necessary for running deep-learning algorithms and eliminates the extra components used for general-purpose GPU tasks.