When I asked before the announcement if Argonne would be the first customer of Ponte Vecchio, the Intel executive heading the briefing dodged the question by instead answering his own, saying ‘we’re not disclosing other customers’. In all my time as a journalist, I don’t think I’ve ever had a question unanswered and dodged in such a way. Unfortunately I had no opportunity in the open Q&A session to follow up.
Ultimately, based on what we know so far, Intel still has a lot of work to do to deliver this by 2021. It may be the case that Aurora is that culmination of all its technologies, and that Intel would be prepared to use the opportunity to help smooth out any issues that might arise. At any rate, some of these technologies might not get in the hands of the rest of us until 2022.
