Wonderful preview | Intel is about to release a new data center platform

On January 11, 2023 (Beijing time), Intel will release a new data center platform. Among them, the new fourth-generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor (Sapphire Rapids), which serves as the foundation of Intel's data center platform, has shipped large quantities of SKUs in 2022.

The new 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor uses Intel 7 process technology and is Intel's most feature-rich Xeon processor to date. It enhances its leadership in several key data center fields such as artificial intelligence and security, and sets a new benchmark for modern performance. The 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor provides excellent overall performance and will support DDR5, PCIe 5.0 and CXL 1.1 , leading the industry to transition to the next generation of memory and interface standards. With new integrated accelerators, it achieves performance improvements over the previous generation through software and hardware optimization for AI workloads. Secondly, the product also has new features for telecommunications networks, which can provide up to two times the capacity gain for virtual radio access network (vRAN) deployment1. Currently, Google has launched the C3 machine series virtual machine using the 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor and Google's customized Intel IPU E3200.

It is worth noting that at the second Intel ON Technology Innovation Summit in September this year, Intel proposed data center on-demand acceleration. Through the new Intel® on-demand activation model, customers can enable additional accelerator combinations in addition to the basic configuration of the original SKU of the 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor, gaining greater flexibility and more choices when business needs arise.

In addition, Intel has developed a new architecture strategy for future generations of Xeon processors, which is a dual-track product roadmap based on performance cores (P-core) and energy efficiency cores (E-core) to integrate two optimized platforms into a general, industry-defining platform. This new architecture strategy will maximize the performance per watt and segmented functions of the product, thereby comprehensively enhancing Intel's overall competitiveness in the industry. While adopting the new strategy, Intel has also further enhanced compatibility with the existing extensive Xeon platform ecosystem to bring better investment returns to users.

At this stage, the third-generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor (Ice Lake), which is mainly optimized for modern workloads, has always been in a strong development trend . Compared with the previous generation of products, it has added several new enhanced platform features, including Intel Software Guard Extensions with built-in security functions, Intel cryptographic operation hardware acceleration, Intel Deep Learning Acceleration Technology (DL Boost) for artificial intelligence acceleration, and new instructions to help vRAN and ORAN functions in the telecommunications field. At present, Intel has shipped more than 6 million third-generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors to customers worldwide.

1 Forecast as of February 10, 2022, based on Sapphire Rapids architecture enhancements, compared to 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable platforms with the same core count, tested with FlexRAN software. Results may vary.