Intel to ship new Nervana Neural Network Processor by end of 2017

This morning at the WSJ's D.Live event, Intel formally unveiled its Nervana Neural Network Processor (NNP) family of chips designed for machine learning use cases. Intel has previously alluded to these chips using the pre-launch name Lake Crest. The technology underlying the chips is heavily tied to Nervana Systems, a deep learning hardware startup Intel purchased last August for $350 million. Intel's NNP chips nix standard cache hierarchy and use software to manage on-chip memory to achieve faster training times for deep learning models. Intel has been scrambling in recent months to avoid being completely leveled by Nvidia.