As Nvidia expands in artificial intelligence, Intel defends turf

Nvidia chips dominate the AI training chip market, where huge amounts of data help algorithms "learn" a task such how to recognize a human voice, but one of the biggest growth areas in the field will be deploying computers that implement the "learned" tasks. Intel dominates data centers where such tasks are likely to be carried out. "For the next 18 to 24 months, it's very hard to envision anyone challenging Nvidia on training," said Jon Bathgate, analyst and tech sector co-lead at Janus Henderson Investors. But Intel processors already are widely used for taking a trained artificial intelligence algorithm and putting it to use, for example by scanning incoming audio and translating that into text-based requests, what is called "inference." Intel's chips can still work just fine there, especially when paired with huge amounts of memory, said Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz, chief technology officer of Nexar Inc, an Israeli startup using smartphone cameras to try to prevent car collisions.