Intel proposes the "Intelligent X Effect" - everything in the data age is a computer

On the afternoon of April 8, the 2020 Intel China Annual Strategy "Sharing Conference" was held in the form of an online live broadcast. Yang Xu, Intel Global Vice President and President of China, Song Jiqiang, Director of Intel China Research Institute, and Wang Rui, Vice President of Intel Marketing Group and General Manager of China, respectively focused on the three dimensions of strategy, technology, and market, explained the new opportunities in the data era from the perspectives of policy, technology, and market, and explained how to harness the new wave of intelligent transformation.

Opportunities for the Smart X Effect

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought severe challenges. How can we see the long-term structural changes in the global and Chinese economic environment through the crisis? 2020 is the starting point of a new decade and an era of great change. The world is being reshaped, unprecedented changes are taking place, and the crisis is a greater test for everyone and every company.

At the 2020 Intel China Annual Strategy Conference, Yang Xu proposed the concept of "Intelligent X Effect", where X stands for intelligent things. More and more intelligent things are connected to become a new value-added platform, which will bring about an exponential explosion of data volume, promote business value-added and cross-industry integration, and bring economic development to a turning point. He asserted: "The opportunity of the 'Intelligent X Effect' is either development or failure."

The explosion of massive data and the diversification of data forms are the new wave today. How high the waves can be depends on the foundation of the sea. Intelligent technology is the foundation of the sea, driving the wave of the data era forward. Yang Xu introduced that Intel is a technology-driven company. Behind innovation is world-class R&D investment. Intel's annual R&D investment accounts for 19% of its revenue. Intel's six major technology pillars run side by side to meet unprecedented computing and performance requirements; the product line covers cloud, network, and terminal, and promotes future innovations such as quantum computing and neuromorphic computing. At the same time, Intel has also strategically acquired a series of innovative companies to strengthen its layout for the future.

Yang Xu mentioned the "new infrastructure" that the current industry is paying close attention to. He believes that the introduction of the new infrastructure policy is very timely, which will play a huge role in promoting the digital economy and is also an opportunity for domestic industrial upgrading and transformation.

"Technology has no borders. The semiconductor industry is a global industry. The whole world is destined to be inseparable. Only by laying out a global supply chain can we be more flexible and more resistant to risks." Yang Xu said, what has Intel relied on to stand at the forefront of technological innovation for 52 years? What is the soul of success? First, you must have a forward-looking vision and be able to judge future trends from a lot of noise. Second, you must have an industrial chain mindset.

Driving technological innovation in the intelligent era

In terms of meeting current industry needs and responding to future industry changes through technological innovation, Song Jiqiang, director of Intel China Research Institute, said that Intel is committed to creating technologies that change the world and benefit everyone on the planet. This is Intel's "lofty wisdom."

At the end of 2018, Intel released its six technology pillars strategy, which are process and packaging, XPU architecture, memory and storage, interconnection, and security. Song Jiqiang said that the six technology pillars are not only the technology engine that will drive Intel's own innovation in the next few years, but also the driving force behind the intelligent innovation transformation of the entire industry. With these six technologies as the framework, he introduced Intel's intelligent innovation from two aspects: current computing innovation and future computing exploration.

Song Jiqiang pointed out that in terms of current computing innovation, Intel's process innovation has pushed Moore's Law back to a two-year cycle, and in terms of architecture, it has launched the Xe architecture that can be used in almost all computing and graphics fields, and in terms of packaging technology, it has proposed the CO-EMIB technology that integrates the EMIB packaging technology and the FOVEROS packaging technology. Thanks to the development of software, XPU hardware and heterogeneous integration, Intel is turning the vision of "super heterogeneous" computing into reality.

Regarding the exploration of future computing, Song Jiqiang pointed out: "The disruptive effect of future computing will occur in three dimensions: computing methods, communication methods, and storage methods."

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In terms of computing methods, quantum computing and neuromorphic computing are two extremely important new computing methods that Intel is currently researching.

Regarding quantum computing, Song Jiqiang said: "Quantum computing is a completely new computing model. Through the coherence of quantum bits, ultra-large-scale parallel computing can be achieved on multiple quantum bits. If the commercialization of quantum computing is likened to "extreme rock climbing", then it has just begun. In the future, we should focus on how to build systems that can be used to solve difficult challenges, that is, "quantum practicality". Only when tens of thousands of quantum bits operate reliably can quantum computers solve practical problems faster than supercomputers."

In terms of data communication, silicon photonics will be a new way of interconnection. Song Jiqiang said that optical technology will be used to optimize the interconnection of large-scale data centers in the future and meet the unlimited demand for bandwidth.

In terms of storage methods, Intel is developing near-memory computing to bring memory and computing resources closer together. Song Jiqiang pointed out: "Near-memory computing refers to moving data up the storage hierarchy to bring it closer to computing components. This is the most urgent need for future data processing, especially AI computing. The near-memory computing unit, which includes a multiplier and a separate static memory, can bring memory and computing resources closer together."

Intelligent transformation brings value to individuals, enterprises and society

Regarding the value of intelligence, Wang Rui, vice president of Intel's Marketing Group and general manager of Intel China, pointed out that this ongoing change brings tangible value to individuals, businesses and society, including the experience value of insight into end-user needs, the economic value of breaking through industry standards, and the social value of responding to public emergencies.

She pointed out that now is a historical intersection of industry-changing technologies. AI makes networks and edges smarter, 5G and edge make AI ubiquitous, and AI and 5G allow the edge to unlock new opportunities. The convergence of AI, 5G, and intelligent edge has created the need and conditions for the rapid update and iteration of intelligent technologies.

To promote intelligent transformation, we need to focus on solving three major challenges. Wang Rui pointed out that first, traditional infrastructure can no longer meet the new needs of intelligence, and a large number of enterprises need to upgrade their infrastructure from cloud to end; second, the application scenarios are very diverse and complex, and to promote large-scale intelligent applications, different solutions need to be formulated according to needs; third, the ecosystem is still in its early stages of development, and only a highly collaborative ecosystem can maximize industrial benefits.

Wang Rui also introduced Intel's strength and product leadership in meeting challenges. She said Intel's product leadership is laying the digital foundation for innovation in multiple fields such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, network transformation and intelligent edge.

Looking into the future, Wang Rui said that 2020 is the beginning of a new decade, the external environment is more uncertain, and the industry needs to work together more.