Intel Embracing AI in Israel
We’ve looked at the recent investments the public and private sectors have been making in AI in this space before -- investments in everything from healthcare applications and preventative maintenance to self-driving vehicles. When all is said and done, however, the AI revolution is being fueled by one thing – data. The data-center business is booming, and many of the large chip developers are investing in AI to adapt to the changing landscape. Intel, for example, just purchased Israel-based AI processor firm Habana Labs for $2 billion – another in a series of acquisitions that point to the tech giant’s increasing reliance on AI to drive revenue streams as PC sales continue to dwindle.
Habana joins other startups and like Movidius, Nervana and Altera in Intel’s portfolio of recently acquired AI-related companies. Intel anticipates the AI chip market to grow to approximately $25 billion by 2024, a projection backed up by industry forecasts. The company has seen its own AI-driven revenue exceed $3.5 billion, representing more than a 20% increase from 2018. Each acquisition specializes in a different area of the expanding AI chip market – for its part, Habana specializes in designing chips for the kind of deep learning systems and applications that are currently being run in big data centers.
“What we hear from our customers is that there’s a heterogonous set of needs,” according to Navin Shenoy, head of Intel’s Data Center Group. “The market opportunities are significant and large enough that we can build out a specialized portfolio to go solve those problems and do it in a way that customers feel good about and respond well to.”
Habana debuted its new Gaudi AI training processor over the summer, a processor the company claims can provide processing speeds roughly equivalent to those provided by competing products from Intel competitors like Nvidia. In March, Nvidia won a bidding war with Intel and Microsoft (among others) over another Israel-based chip manufacturer, Mellanox. Nvidia ended up committing almost $7 billion to purchase the communications and networking outfit, which was itself founded by several former Intel executives. The same former execs founded Galileo Technology, which was sold to Marvell Technology Group back in 2000 for approx. $2.8 billion.
Habana will continue to function independently while reporting to Intel’s data platform group, and the company’s chairman, Avigdor Willenz, will remain in that role, while also serving a senior advisor to Intel. The acquisition of Habana increases Intel’s already substantial presence in Israel, including headquartering the company’s automotive technology division, which was relocated to Israel after Intel purchased autonomous and assisted-driving firm Mobileye in 2017 for $15 billion.
What does all this investment in AI-related technology mean for the future of the industry? When most of the big chip makers were still in their latent stages, the industry’s overriding vision was to put a personal computer in every home or office in America, and eventually, the world. In 2019, that vision is now a reality, so much so that almost everyone carries a PC around with them in their pocket or purse all day, every day. Now, those same chip makers are telling the world, through their investments, where they think the industry is heading – and that destination is the union of AI and big data. The era of personal computers and consumer electronics driving the industry may be drawing to a close… and the age of artificial intelligence may be just beginning.