Intel claims that the new Sierra Forest chip will be more than double power efficient compared to the previous chip.
Intel announced on Monday that a new data center chip coming out next year can handle more than twice the amount of computation per watt of power used compared to its predecessors. Intel said their “Sierra Forest” chip will perform 240% better per watt than the present data center chips at a semiconductor technology conference held at Standford University.
Internet data centers, which drive online services, demand significant electricity. As a result, tech companies are under increasing pressure to maintain or decrease their energy consumption. This has led chip manufacturers to prioritize maximizing computing efficiency per chip.
Ampere Computing, founded by former Intel leaders, pioneered a chip tailored for efficient cloud computing tasks. Subsequently, Intel and its competitor, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), unveiled similar products, with AMD’s version debuting in June. On Monday, Intel, having faced competition and market share losses to AMD and Ampere in the data center segment, announced its “Sierra Forest” chip is set for release next year.
For the first time, Intel is categorizing its data center chips into two: The “Granite Rapids” chip, aimed at higher performance but with greater power consumption, and the energy-efficient “Sierra Forest” chip.
Ronak Singhal, a distinguished expert at Intel, mentioned that their clients can now merge legacy software onto fewer data center computers.
