Intel Developer Cloud Is Expanded So Prospective Buyers Can Try Products Before Buying It

Intel Corp, at the launch of Intel Geti. (photo: twitter @intel)

JAKARTA - Intel Corp is planning to expand its Intel Developer Cloud to allow customers to try out new chips before they hit the market. According to Intel, on Tuesday 27 September, this is a move that it hopes will lure more app developers to use its processors.

Chip companies are increasingly allowing software and hardware developers to virtually test chips in the cloud before they are shipped to save time.

A robust software developer ecosystem is increasingly becoming a competitive advantage for semiconductor hardware manufacturers. This is one reason many artificial intelligence researchers say they use Nvidia Corp chips for AI computing work, because its CUDA software platform has a large user base.

"In some ways, Intel is the biggest software company you've never heard of," said Nick McKeown, who heads Intel's Edge and Networks group.

He added that there are more than 20,000 software developers at Intel. "What we've done in the past tends to do software that only allows low-grade silicon to shine, but that's invisible," he said.

He said Intel has been trying to make the developer cloud easier to use and is also trying to hook up the next generation of developers to create applications for Intel chips.

To that end, four years ago Intel hired Ria Cheruvu, an engineering prodigy who joined the company at the age of 14 with a bachelor's degree in computer science from Harvard. Cheruvu says young developers face a lot of difficulties understanding technologies and experimenting with them, and that the developer cloud helps overcome some of the problems.

Intel last Tuesday at its developer conference also unveiled the 13th generation Intel Core desktop processors to help improve gaming experiences and the Intel Geti platform to help customers develop and use AI for computer vision.

The company also said that the Arc A770 GPU for gamers will be available on October 12 with a starting price of $329, which Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger said that Intel is fixing an issue gamers have complained about the higher price tag.