By Sarah Al Arab | Staff Writer
Intel has announced its development of a new infrastructure processing unit (IPU) that is co-developed by a cloud-service supplier. High expectations were set for this chip hoping that it will be a major seller in the cloud computing market.
The IPU is designed in collaboration with Google Cloud which is responsible for utilizing the technology in its cloud centers. This chip was named Mount Evans and was brought to life on Wednesday the 27th of October.
Mount Evans can be considered as a substitute of cloud computing operators who build massive data centers with powerful hardware computers and machines, then sell their storages for other businesses that do not have their own.
The process of setting these storages and providing the virtual machines for the customers, matching them with their data and catering to their needs, is extremely costly and time-consuming. Hence, the IPU of Mount Evans is in charge of detaching the minor tasks from the main central ones in an attempt to speed them up. Along with that, the data has become much safer and more flexible for change and development.
Mount Evans is considered Intel’s first application-specific integrated circuit the company has ever built under the IPU business.
“We see this as strategically vital. It’s an extremely important area for us and for the data center,” Nick McKeown, senior vice president of the network and edge group at Intel, notified Reuters.
Intel and Google are not the only players developing infrastructure processing units, Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) and Marvell Technology Inc (MRVL.O) are working on such tools as well, though they still do not compare to Mount Evans.
In accordance, Intel and Google are working on some other tools that shall be released for free in a while, hoping that this would be a bright step for the future of cloud computing.