Gaudi & Falcon Shores: Intel’s New Focus After Ponte Vecchio Sunset

In 2019, Intel first introduced the Ponte Vecchio based on the Xe-HPG architecture. During the Intel Unleashed event in early 2021, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger publicly unveiled Ponte Vecchio, offering the world its first clear view of the hardware. This significant project was overseen by Raja Koduri, who was appointed as Intel’s Chief Architect of the graphics division.

According to Serve The Home, Intel has completed the deployment of Ponte Vecchio and will not be expanding its clusters. The company will continue to support existing systems utilizing Ponte Vecchio while shifting its focus to Gaudi 2/3 and Falcon Shores, which are anticipated to be released in 2025. The Xe series architecture remains crucial for Intel, and they will continue developing supporting software for next year’s products.

Ponte Vecchio is Intel’s first exascale-level GPU, utilizing the company’s most advanced packaging technology to date. It boasts over 100 billion transistors and comprises 47 individual chips, known as “tiles,” making it a pinnacle of Intel’s technological prowess at the time. The GPU consists of 63 modules, including 16 compute chips based on the Xe-HPG architecture, 8 Rambo cache chips, 2 Xe base chips, 11 EMIB connection chips, 2 Xe Link I/O chips, and 8 HBM chips, along with 16 tiles for TDP output, all integrated through EMIB and Foveros 3D packaging.

At the end of 2022, Intel launched the MAX series of CPUs and GPUs, built on the chips codenamed Sapphire Rapids-HBM and Ponte Vecchio, respectively. This product line targets high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI), powering the Aurora supercomputer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. Recently, Aurora secured the second position in the 63rd edition of the global Top500 supercomputing list, achieving a performance of 1.012 exaflop/s.