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 datasets 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.