Intel Ponte Vecchio Waves Goodbye, Company Focuses on Falcon Shores for 2025 Release

[AleksandarK]

According to ServeTheHome, Intel has decided to discontinue its high-performance computing (HPC) product line, Ponte Vecchio, and shift its focus towards developing its next-generation data center GPU, codenamed Falcon Shores. This decision comes as Intel aims to streamline its operations and concentrate its resources on the most promising and competitive offerings. The Ponte Vecchio GPU, released in January of 2023, was intended to be Intel's flagship product for the HPC market, competing against the likes of NVIDIA's H100 and AMD's Instinct MI series. However, despite its impressive specifications and features, Ponte Vecchio faced significant delays and challenges in its development and production cycle. Intel's decision to abandon Ponte Vecchio is pragmatic, recognizing the intense competition and rapidly evolving landscape of the data center GPU market.

By pivoting its attention to Falcon Shores, Intel aims to deliver a more competitive and cutting-edge solution that can effectively challenge the dominance of its rivals. Falcon Shores, slated for release in 2025, is expected to leverage Intel's latest process node and architectural innovations. Currently, Intel has Gaudi 2 and Gaudi 3 accelerators for AI. However, the HPC segment is left without a clear leader in the company's product offerings. Intel's Ponte Vecchio is powering Aurora exascale supercomputer, which is the latest submission to the TOP500 supercomputer lists. This is also coming after the Rialto Bridge cancellation, which was supposed to be an HPC-focused card. In the future, the company will focus only on the Falcon Shores accelerator, which will unify HPC and AI needs for high-precision FP64 and lower-precision FP16/INT8.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[bubbly1724]

Check your TPU source on Rialto cancellation. Rialto was always just supposed to be an iteration on Ponte Vecchio (GPU only). Falcon Shores was the first product that was supposed to allow CPU + GPU modularity in a single package, but obviously focus is just on GPU + improved AI now.

 

[Daven]

Check your TPU source on Rialto cancellation. Rialto was always just supposed to be an iteration on Ponte Vecchio (GPU only). Falcon Shores was the first product that was supposed to allow CPU + GPU modularity in a single package, but obviously focus is just on GPU + improved AI now.

Intel canceled the CPU + GPU part. Falcon shores is only GPU now.

Intel abandons XPU plan to cram CPU, GPU, memory into one package

AMD now has clear runway to conquer datacenter APU market

www.theregister.com

 

[ScaLibBDP]

>>...Intel has decided to discontinue its high-performance computing (HPC) product line, Ponte Vecchio...

Intel Ponte Vecchio GPU accelerator is used on Aurora exascale supercomputer. I don't think the US DoE is "glad" to hear that. Also, there is another very interesting news on www.hpcwire.com and take a look:

"Some Reasons Why Aurora Didn’t Take First Place in the Top500 List"

Some Reasons Why Aurora Didn’t Take First Place in the Top500 List

The makers of the Aurora supercomputer, which is housed at the Argonne National Laboratory, gave some reasons why the system didn’t make the top spot on the Top500 list of […]

www.hpcwire.com

The most interesting part is:
...
The System Wasn't Built for High-performance LINPACK Runs
The hardware choices for Aurora indicate the system wasn't built expressly to achieve top high-performance LINPACK benchmarks...
...

This is Not true! Period! I think Intel simply failed. Take into account that Aurora uses 70% more power when compared to Frontier exascale supercomputer.

 

[Daven]

This is Not true! Period! I think Intel simply failed. Take into account that Aurora uses 70% more power when compared to Frontier exascale supercomputer.

You’re right. Intel failed. They took billions of dollars made from anti monopolistic behavior and squandered it on generic frat boy business practices.