Intel has launched its new data centre platform in India. The new third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named “Ice Lake”) are the foundation of its most advanced data centre platform yet, the company said.
The platform has been optimised to power a range of workloads from the cloud to the network to the intelligent edge.
The New 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors deliver a significant performance increase compared with the prior generation, with an average 46 per cent improvement on popular data centre workloads, Intel said.
Intel launches new Partner Alliance to unify the channel
The processors also add new and enhanced platform capabilities, including Intel SGX for built-in security, and Intel Crypto Acceleration and Intel DL Boost for AI acceleration.
“The future of technology is being shaped by several inflections, including the proliferation of the cloud, AI, the rapid adoption of 5G and computing at the edge. As the pace of this digital disruption accelerates, Intel’s technology and leadership products are more critical than ever,” said Prakash Mallya, VP and MD – Sales, Marketing and Communications Group, Intel India.
“Intel’s new 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors deliver flexible architecture with built-in acceleration and advanced security capabilities that are essential in a world of workload diversification and growing complexity,” said Mallya.
Intel announces 11th Gen Intel Core S-series desktop processors
Specs and features
The processors leverage Intel’s 10 nanometer (nm) process technology and deliver up to 40 cores per processor.
The platform supports up to 6 terabytes of system memory per socket, up to 8 channels of DDR4-3200 memory per socket and up to 64 lanes of PCIe Gen4 per socket.
It also includes the Intel Optane persistent memory 200 series, Intel Optane Solid State Drive (SSD) P5800X and Intel SSD D5-P5316 NAND SSDs, as well as Intel Ethernet 800 Series Network Adapters and the latest Intel Agilex FPGAs.
The latest hardware and software optimisations deliver 74 per cent faster AI performance compared with the prior generation, as per the company.
Intel SGX, now available on 2-socket Xeon Scalable processors, protects sensitive code and data with the smallest potential attack surface within the system. It can isolate and process up to 1 terabyte of code and data to support the demands of mainstream workloads. The built-in crypto acceleration is meant to help organisations that run encryption-intensive workloads, such as online retailers who process millions of customer transactions per day.
“Additionally, to accelerate workloads on the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable platform, software developers can optimise their applications using oneAPI open, cross-architecture programming,” Intel said.
Other new features include Intel Total Memory Encryption and Intel Platform Firmware Resilience.
The processors are also supported by over 500 ready-to-deploy Intel IoT Market Ready Solutions and Intel Select Solutions that help to accelerate customer deployments — with up to 80 per cent of Intel Select Solutions being refreshed by end of year.
Early adopters in India
In India, early adopters of the new 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable platform include Reliance Jio, Wipro Limited, CtrlS, ESDS and Pi Datacenters. Additionally, key hardware and software ecosystem players have market-ready solutions to enable customers to efficiently deploy Intel’s latest technologies and enhance performance across workloads, it said.
Aayush Bhatnagar, Senior Vice-President, Jio said, “5G workloads will necessitate infrastructure that can seamlessly scale to support responsiveness and diverse performance requirements. The growth of data consumption, edge computing and the rapid expansion of cloud-native 5G networks would require the evolution of processors to meet these demands. The 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor is an important milestone in this evolution journey.”
Jio can leverage this technology both for 5G and other use cases, including various blockchain-enabled use cases.
“As part of our ongoing collaboration, we are going to see how these attributes and features can be leveraged to the best possible extent to deliver these use cases at scale,” Bhatnagar said.
“AI models are becoming larger everyday, driving the need for better computing performance,” said Srikanth Velamakanni, Group CEO of Fractal.
“The new 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors will significantly improve compute and memory performance required for scaled AI applications everywhere. Our AI solutions in machine vision, edge/drone computing, personalisation (Customer Genomics), and predictive maintenance (Eugenie.ai) will benefit from this launch,” added Velamakanni
