Intel Acquires Artificial Intelligence Chipmaker Habana Labs
December 16 2019 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Combination Advances Intel’s AI Strategy,
Strengthens Portfolio of AI Accelerators for the Data Center
Intel Corporation today announced that it has acquired Habana
Labs, an Israel-based developer of programmable deep learning
accelerators for the data center for approximately $2 billion. The
combination strengthens Intel’s artificial intelligence (AI)
portfolio and accelerates its efforts in the nascent, fast-growing
AI silicon market, which Intel expects to be greater than $25
billion by 20241.
This press release features multimedia. View
the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191216005167/en/
Habana Labs chairman Avigdor Willenz
stands near a rack that incorporates Habana Labs' HLS-1 Gaudi
artificial intelligence training system at Habana Labs' office in
Caesarea, Israel. Willenz will serve as a senior adviser to the
business unit as well as to Intel Corporation after Intel's
purchase of Habana. (Credit: Eyal Toueg/Intel Corporation)
“This acquisition advances our AI strategy, which is to provide
customers with solutions to fit every performance need – from the
intelligent edge to the data center,” said Navin Shenoy, executive
vice president and general manager of the Data Platforms Group at
Intel. “More specifically, Habana turbo-charges our AI offerings
for the data center with a high-performance training processor
family and a standards-based programming environment to address
evolving AI workloads.”
Intel’s AI strategy is grounded in the belief that harnessing
the power of AI to improve business outcomes requires a broad mix
of technology – hardware and software – and full ecosystem support.
Today, Intel AI solutions are helping customers turn data into
business value and driving meaningful revenue for the company. In
2019, Intel expects to generate over $3.5 billion in AI-driven
revenue, up more than 20 percent year-over-year. Together, Intel
and Habana can accelerate the delivery of best-in-class AI products
for the data center, addressing customers’ evolving needs.
Shenoy continued: “We know that customers are looking for ease
of programmability with purpose-built AI solutions, as well as
superior, scalable performance on a wide variety of workloads and
neural network topologies. That’s why we’re thrilled to have an AI
team of Habana’s caliber with a proven track record of execution
joining Intel. Our combined IP and expertise will deliver unmatched
computing performance and efficiency for AI workloads in the data
center.”
Habana will remain an independent business unit and will
continue to be led by its current management team. Habana will
report to Intel’s Data Platforms Group, home to Intel’s broad
portfolio of data center class AI technologies. This combination
gives Habana access to Intel AI capabilities, including significant
resources built over the last three years with deep expertise in AI
software, algorithms and research that will help Habana scale and
accelerate.
Habana chairman Avigdor Willenz has agreed to serve as a senior
adviser to the business unit as well as to Intel. Habana will
continue to be based in Israel where Intel also has a significant
presence and long history of investment. Prior to this transaction,
Intel Capital was an investor in Habana.
“We have been fortunate to get to know and collaborate with
Intel given its investment in Habana, and we’re thrilled to be
officially joining the team,” said David Dahan, CEO of Habana.
“Intel has created a world-class AI team and capability. We are
excited to partner with Intel to accelerate and scale our business.
Together, we will deliver our customers more AI innovation,
faster.”
Going forward, Intel plans to take full advantage of its growing
portfolio of AI technology and talent to deliver customers
unmatched computing performance and efficiency for AI
workloads.
Habana’s AI Training and Inference Products
Habana’s Gaudi AI Training Processor is currently sampling with
select hyperscale customers. Large-node training systems based on
Gaudi are expected to deliver up to a 4x increase in throughput
versus systems built with the equivalent number of GPUs. Gaudi is
designed for efficient and flexible system scale-up and
scale-out.
Additionally, Habana’s Goya AI Inference Processor, which is
commercially available, has demonstrated excellent inference
performance including throughput and real-time latency in a highly
competitive power envelope. Gaudi for training and Goya for
inference offer a rich, easy-to-program development environment to
help customers deploy and differentiate their solutions as AI
workloads continue to evolve with growing demands on compute,
memory and connectivity.
About Intel
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), a leader in the semiconductor industry, is
shaping the data-centric future with computing and communications
technology that is the foundation of the world’s innovations. The
company’s engineering expertise is helping address the world’s
greatest challenges as well as helping secure, power and connect
billions of devices and the infrastructure of the smart, connected
world – from the cloud to the network to the edge and everything in
between. Find more information about Intel at newsroom.intel.com
and intel.com.
© Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel
marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.
Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of
others.
1Intel estimates the total addressable market (TAM) for AI
silicon by 2024 will be greater than $25 billion, and within that,
AI silicon in the data center is expected to be greater than $10
billion in the same timeframe.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191216005167/en/
Trey Campbell Intel Investor Relations +1 (503) 696 2829
trey.s.campbell@intel.com
Cara Walker Intel Media Relations +1 (503) 696-0831
cara.walker@intel.com
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