Hiya and welcome to Eye on AI.
The massive AI story from this previous week is available in chip type, courtesy of Intel. At its developer occasion in San Jose, the corporate unveiled its forthcoming laptop computer chip, code-named Meteor Lake, which it says will allow AI workloads to run natively on a laptop computer, together with a GPT-style generative AI chatbot. It’s all a part of the corporate’s imaginative and prescient for the “AI PC,” a close to future the place laptops will ship private, non-public, and safe AI capabilities. And with Meteor Lake arriving this December, Intel says these laptops will start hitting retailer cabinets subsequent 12 months.
“We see the AI PC as a sea change second in tech innovation,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger stated throughout his opening keynote earlier than helping a colleague in demonstrations of AI PC purposes stay on stage. In a single demo, they created a music within the fashion of Taylor Swift in mere seconds. In one other, they confirmed off text-to-image generative capabilities utilizing Secure Diffusion—all run domestically on the laptop computer.
For these in search of a full deep dive on the chip specs, The Verge has an ideal breakdown. However we’re going to zero in on the brand new AI part that’s making this all attainable—and the impression it might have on generative AI adoption for security-concerned customers.
The flexibility to run these extra advanced AI purposes on the laptop computer comes by way of the brand new Neural Processing Unit (NPU), Intel’s first-ever part devoted to specialised AI workloads. The GPU and CPU will proceed to have their roles in operating AI purposes too, however the NPU opens up a number of prospects.
In a video providing a extra technical breakdown of Meteor Lake, Intel senior principal engineer of AI software program structure Darren Crews described the place every part shines. The CPU is sweet for very small workloads, whereas the GPU is sweet for giant batch workloads that don’t require a lot run time. It is because when algorithms run on the CPU, you’re restricted by the quantity of environment friendly compute. And whereas the GPU might technically energy a few of these extra intensive AI workloads, it’s a stretch for a battery-constrained system like a laptop computer and would require exorbitant quantities of electrical energy.
The NPU, nevertheless, provides a extra power-efficient strategy to run AI purposes, Crews stated. This makes it helpful for these steady, giant batch workloads with larger complexity which are too intensive for the CPU and GPU and turning into increasingly more sought-after as AI booms. Now, it’s necessary to be clear that this isn’t the primary ever occasion of AI operating domestically on a laptop computer, and a few builders have even rigged up instruments to take action with GPT-style LLMs. However it’s a very actual step towards doing so in a large, publicly-available strategy to meet this generative AI second.
Maybe the largest takeaway from all that is the potential impression on knowledge safety and privateness. The flexibility to run these AI workloads domestically might enable customers to forgo the cloud and maintain delicate knowledge on the system. This isn’t to say the cloud goes anyplace, however so far as generative AI goes, it’s a shift that might have loads of impression.
A couple of weeks in the past when Eye on AI talked with corporations throughout industries about why they’d or wouldn’t be utilizing ChatGPT Enterprise, considerations about knowledge safety, privateness, and compliance had been cited as a motive for refraining. This was one concern of the executives at upskilling platform Degreed, for instance, who stated they’d must see clear and measurable safety practices (amongst different modifications, like actionable insights to fight misinformation) with the intention to contemplate adopting the tech.
“That is positively a step in the best route,” Fei Sha, VP of knowledge science and engineering at Degreed, advised Eye on AI when requested after the Intel announcement if that is the kind of safety enchancment they’d must see.
However whereas acknowledging that operating an AI chatbot domestically can present safety and privateness advantages in comparison with a cloud-based answer, she stated it’d nonetheless be simply as necessary to make sure the safety and compliance of the on-premise AI chatbot and likewise reiterated different considerations concerning the tech.
“We additionally want to analyze and take actions to deal with different considerations related to AI chatbots, similar to accuracy and reliability, lack of human contact, bias, and discrimination, lack of empathy, restricted area information, problem in explaining selections, misaligned person expectations, and methods for steady enchancment, and many others,” she stated.
And with that, right here’s the remainder of this week’s AI information.
However first…a reminder: Fortune is internet hosting a web-based occasion subsequent month referred to as “Capturing AI Advantages: How one can Stability Threat and Alternative.”
On this digital dialog, a part of Fortune Brainstorm AI, we are going to talk about the dangers and potential harms of AI, centering the dialog round how leaders can mitigate the potential detrimental results of the know-how, permitting them confidently to seize the advantages. The occasion will happen on Oct. 5 at 11 a.m. ET. Register for the dialogue right here.
Sage Lazarus
sage.lazzaro@marketing consultant.fortune.com
sagelazzaro.com
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
