Intel to buy deep-learning startup Nervana Systems for at least $350M

Re:Intel to buy deep-learning startup Nervana Systems for at... by scottlegrand on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @10:47PM (#12259194)

I figured Nervana was mostly dead if they were stuck at 28 nm

I figured Intel was down and out in Santa Clara without a strong deep learning play

That all changed today.

Intel has been bouncing all over the place trying to break into deep learning. If they don't screw this up, they just found their way in IMO.

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Re:Intel to buy deep-learning startup Nervana Systems for at... by nibnib on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @02:34AM (#12259882)

>I figured Nervana was mostly dead if they were stuck at 28 nm

Why? Is there a competitor that has leveraged a more modern process technology?

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Re:Intel to buy deep-learning startup Nervana Systems for at... by scottlegrand on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @06:58AM (#12260723)

Yep, NVIDIA. Nervana's dedicated ASIC will deliver 55 (mostly) int16 TOps in 2017. In contrast, the two Titan XP GPUs I bought last week for a total of $2400 deliver 44 such TOps. Next year, a single Volta GPU will deliver at least 36 so I saw no way for them to win on their own with NVIDIA's GPU roadmap merrily marching along since 2007.

However, getting access to Intel's fabs makes them a lot more interesting and competitive. It's not a slamdunk for Intel yet because they still have to incorporate this into their product line (anyone seen Altera's Stratix 10 yet? Because that was supposed to be 2014's 10+ TFLOP GPU killer), but it's a fantastic acquisition and I wish them the best.

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