Intel delays AI chip for internal testing to rival Nvidia with future releases

Intel’s next-generation AI GPUs ‘Falcon Shores’ have effectively been canceled. The Falcon Shores chips were meant to replace Intel's Gaudi 3 chip, however, the company has decided to use them as ‘internal test chips’ with no plans for a market release. This comes as a big setback but may help the company compete with Nvidia.

During a recent earnings call via The Motley Fool, Intel CEO Michelle Holthaus said, “Many of you heard me temper expectations on Falcon Shores last month. Based on industry feedback, we plan to leverage Falcon Shores as an internal test chip only without bringing it to market.”

Intel to compete with Nvidia on GPU front

The Falcon Shores was initially planned as a competitor in the AI market, which Nvidia dominates. However, with Falcon Shores now put to rest, the company will be putting its focus on Jaguar Shores, the next iteration of Intel AI GPUs.

“One of the things that we’ve learned from Gaudi is, it’s not enough to just deliver the silicon. We need to be able to deliver a complete rack-scale solution, and that's what we're going to be able to do with Jaguar Shores,” he added.

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Intel struggling to compete in the AI market

Artificial Intelligence has been one of the biggest push for tech companies in a while. Nvidia in particular has been dominating the space for both gaming and industry-grade GPUs. While companies like AMD have been making slow progress, they seem to always be one step behind, at least on the GPU front.

Intel on the other hand has been completely out of the race. Primarily known for making some of the most powerful CPUs, the company was defeated by the AMD Ryzen series of processors which now integrates AI with better performance for data centers leaving Intel facing threats from both sides.