Intel’s Partner Connect 2021 Virtual event just keeps getting better. This year’s event theme, ‘together moving the world forward,’ supports Intel’s culture with an undercurrent of optimism, which they believe is a critical ingredient of innovation. However, as host Lisa Ling pointed out, the word together is the single most important for us all to grasp. It is echoed throughout the event to illustrate the importance and reliance on partnership. How together, in extreme partnership, we really can move the world forward. As the Intel executives assemble to provide updates and insight, the conversation shifts to the dawn of a new day. The universal symbol of hope, optimism, and possibilities.
As the International Space Station is described, there is a focus on the deep partnership across nations that occurred to turn the dream into reality. The same extreme partnership brings together the talents and contributions of diverse teams to go beyond convenience or necessity to deliver significant and meaningful change. This is why Intel, along with its ecosystem of partners, delivers on the vision of creating technology that enriches the lives of every person on earth. And this is happening from the edge to the cloud across disciplines and industries, combining expertise in design, engineering, manufacturing, distribution, software, and services to deliver our most extensive, most meaningful opportunities together.
1. The Demand for Computing Continues to Explode
All of these new opportunities are creating factories of data. The Global Data Sphere is expected to grow from 45 zettabytes in 2019 to 175 zettabytes by 2025. Intel continues to advance the data architectures required to move, store, and process all of the data being generated to meet this growth. They continue to invest in AI, 5G, cloud, and intelligent and autonomous edge while transforming from a CPU company to an XPU company. Intel is changing in many ways, including moving from a traditional integrated device manufacturer to a modern and flexible IDM.
2. Intel’s Four Priorities for Growth & Leadership
Pat Gelsinger, CEO at Intel, lays out his four critical priorities for growth and sustained leadership. These priorities are to lead in every category, execute flawlessly, innovate with boldness, and build a healthy and vibrant culture. For partners, this means a stronger Intel, a more robust portfolio, and stronger partnerships. All designed to enable partner growth and success. At the center of it all is the newly launched Intel Partner Alliance. This merges all of the siloed programs of the past into a unified yet personalized experience that also includes a new marketplace to showcase Intel-based solutions.
Pat Gelsinger also commented on what he calls IDM 2.0 as a move that sets the course for a new era of innovation and leadership. He further outlines the three powerful capabilities that make this a reality. They include Intel’s internal factory network, their strategic use of external foundry capacity, and their new foundry services. Combine this with the announcement of a $20 billion investment to build two new factories in the U.S., and you can see Intel is serious about growth. And we would agree with Pat that Intel’s best days are ahead, especially with him at the helm.
3. Michelle Johnston Holthaus Discusses Opportunities & Challenges
Michelle starts her session with energy and excitement around Pat’s return to Intel, along with the power and drive to execute, he brings to the Intel organization. It has sparked a renewed level of excitement and energy throughout Intel that is hard to deny, and his dedication to partnerships ensures we are all along for the ride. Michelle talks about reorganizing her team to focus even more on partners and bring their needs to a higher level within the organization as they focus on growth and success. She is also hyper-focused on integrating everything across Intel to get the total weight and capability that exists across the company. Together, the theme is enhanced as you see it as the driving force behind everything they are doing. She also addresses supply as it is top of mind for most people in the industry. Intel has responded to the supply challenges that started at the end of 2018 by investing in increased capacity two-fold. The PC has become even more critical than ever, and that has continued to drive demand. Still, Intel believes they can build the die to supply well over market demand with the investments and increase in capacity. The CPU will no longer be the bottleneck, but other next-level components will be. The session ends with a discussion on competition, which Michelle believes just makes Intel strive to better.
4. Business Unit Updates: Cloud-Native, AI,& Edge Computing
Each business unit addressed the essential products and strategies on the horizon. Rose Schooler, the global data center sales team leader, extends the explosive growth of data discussion with more details and insights. By 2024, with 75% of enterprises prioritizing infrastructure agility and operational efficiency, there will be a 5X increase in cloud-native architecture adoption. Within the same time frame, 55% of those enterprises will depend on AI for critical workloads, and 80% of core network workloads will be virtualized. Lastly, by 2028 Tolaga Research believes edge computing will be an $800 billion market. Rose mentions the recent launch of the Intel Ethernet 800 Series. Intel Optane SSDs P5800X, Optane Memory 200 Series, and of course, the third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors are delivering 74% more inferencing performance over prior generations.
Brad Haczynski, General Manager of Intel’s IoT Global Sales organization, talks about the opportunities at the edge and the critical need for partners to make sense of it all. This area is complex and often challenging to navigate, creating the need for strong partnerships to help customers understand the intersections of capabilities and industrial consumers of technology. Here you see solutions like defect detection, sanitation robots, and vision-based technology for retail. He also shared education examples that show how technology is bridging the gap between online and face-to-face learners. Essential IoT products include Elkhart Lake CPUs, VPU, FPGA, networking silicon, and software-based products like Open Vino visual toolkit. Dermott Hargaden, General Manager, PSG Sales & Business Management, talks about FPGA and its critical role from edge to cloud. Built for flexibility and innovation, in a world of change, FPGAs win. They extend platform capabilities, intercept evolving requirements, and incubate the future, allowing you to win the now, the new, and the next. The three areas of focus here are to win with high-performance FPGAs, build confidence in Edge optimized products, and deliver an unprecedented portfolio of solutions to show customers what is possible.Steve A Long, General Manager, Client Computing Group Sales, talks about client solutions, the human connection point. COVID created a different set of challenges that pushed everyone, everywhere, to do everything from home, relying on their home PCs to meet the challenge. The enormous growth in PCs saw double-digit growth in 2020, with the expectation of similar results in 2021. They are also using their supply chain and scale to meet demand. The Intel vPRO Platform and Intel EVO are key products delivering performance, connectivity, security, and manageability to the consumer market.
5. SK Hynix and NAND Flash Memory
Rob Crooke, Intel Senior VP and leader of the NAND business, discusses the details of the separation of the NAND company that will join SK hynix later this year. SK hynix will take over the NAND flash business while Intel retains Intel Optane technology. This decision will mean greater investment in scale to play a more prominent role in partner success. They bring together the data center persistent memory solutions with data center SSDs and client harbored drives together into one group. This partnership with SK Hynix will deliver the world’s best NAND business together, to be number one. Intel commits to keeping business and usual until the deal closes with the same processes, tools, and people in place. They are excited about what the future holds.
Miss the Event? Watch it On-Demand!
The Intel event is available on-demand at Welcome - IPC 2021 AMERICAS Virtual Intel Partner Connect (cvent.com). Break-out sessions for client, data center, IoT, FPGA, and more are available to provide more specific product details. UNICOM Engineering is always excited to be part of this invaluable ecosystem, and we look forward to working with you to win with Intel. Learn more about how you can get started with UNICOM Engineering today by visiting our Intel Xeon Scalable Processors page.