Last week I joined more than 10,000 other innovators, industry experts, and professionals for three days of learning, connecting, collaborating, and exploring at Autodesk University (AU) 2022. AU is one of the conferences my team eagerly anticipates each year. We get to connect with our new and current customers, catch up with peers, and learn from industry leaders. One of my favorite things to do is simply to listen and hear firsthand from creators how 12th Generation Intel® Core™ processor based workstations and Intel® Arc™ Pro A-Series graphics are meeting their most performance-intensive workloads so they can deliver their best work.
AU again provided us with multiple opportunities to connect with creators and share new strategies and ideas on ways to leverage Intel and Autodesk so they can get their jobs done—easier, faster, and smarter. If you couldn’t connect with us at AU or we’re unable to attend, here are some highlights of how Intel showed up at AU 2022.
Panel discussion | Tech Trends: The Promise of Platform and Digital Transformation for People and the Planet
Pam Hayes, Intel senior director of Desktop, Workstation & Channel Group, Workstation Segment, joined Autodesk partners from the AEC, media and entertainment, and manufacturing industries to discuss:
- What transformation means and looks like for today’s workforce
- How platform environments can deliver greater value from people, processes, and technology
- Why a sustainable approach is key to business success and creating a better world.
Throughout the six-person, 60-minute panel discussion, Pam’s contributions all had one common thread—a focus on people. This was not surprising to hear, as Intel places its people at the heart of everything it does. It’s how we fulfill our mission of creating world-changing technology that improves the life of every person on the planet.
For example, when asked during the conference how digital transformation is fostering real-time collaboration and what Linda Hill, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School— calls “collective genius,” Pam said that we must first focus on connecting the right people with the right talent, and then think about the technology.
“… Think about the collaboration required to build a microprocessor. There are massive teams and a lot of talent. [But it’s not only] the talent of people that you have: it’s the collaboration; it’s the communication; it’s the processes [in place]. If any of that breaks down, then your processor isn’t going to be on time to market and may not meet competitive needs,” said Pam. “So, it all has to come together, work together, and collaborate in real time in order to bring products to market in a competitive cost structure.”
The panel members were also asked to discuss the following questions and prompts:
- Thanks to the promise of a unified workflow that platforms offer, Gartner predicts that 95 percent of all work will be platform-driven by 2025. How do you think connected people, processes, and data will impact the AEC, manufacturing, and M&E industries in the future?
- What platform standards are needed to establish trust and collaboration with customers?
How have you seen technology help build environmental resilience, and how do you anticipate its impact to increase in the future? - Extreme weather events, including heat waves, have been increasing in recent years, and industries need to do their part to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change. The World Economic Forum says that digital technology has the potential to cut global emissions by 15 percent. How is digital transformation driving this change?
- What kind of innovation priorities or customer needs might be driving your business strategy for the future?
- According to research from McKinsey, automation could free employees to spend as much as 30 percent of their time on new work. What impact could that have on the AEC, manufacturing, and M&E industries, and how should leaders focus on upskilling employees?
I encourage you to watch the panel discussion to not only hear Pam’s response from an Intel perspective but listen to the contributions and insights of the other panelists. Despite the panelists being from drastically different industries, there were some common threads weaved throughout all their answers that may surprise you.
Watch the Tech Trends panel discussion (login required)
Session | Faster Design and Computation on the Go
With John Pierson, design technology specialist for Parallax Team
Read John’s AU 2022 blog post
I was excited to hear Revit plugin author and Dynamo expert John Pierson talk about how hardware makes or breaks his workflows, and why he trusts 12th Gen Intel® processors to power his content creation through Autodesk. It was especially interesting to watch his typical workflow—working in a Revit plugin, debugging in Revit 2023, and rendering in Twinmotion—live on the new Lenovo ThinkPad P16 mobile workstation which is based on 12th Generation Intel® Core™ i9 processors. Prior to AU 2022, we asked John to try out the ThinkPad P16 workstation and put our processors to the test. We were happy to learn during his session that John was impressed with the responsiveness, performance, and efficiency of the new system.
John’s session was not recorded. However, he did write a blog post with an accompanying video that discusses his journey as a mobile Revit user, including how he started working in Revit on a Dell Inspiron 14z 5423 with Windows 7 and the 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5 ULV. It’s an interesting story and worth reading and watching.
Session | What If... Convergence of Desktop, Collaboration, Data, and Digitization
With Jarod Shultz, director of strategy for Industrial Construction at Team D3
Read Jarod’s AU 2022 blog post
Convergence is always a hot topic, which is why Jarod’s session was at the top of my must-see-sessions list. His expertise is in the convergence of the construction and manufacturing industries to create what many are calling “industrialized construction.” With this convergence, Jarod sees construction taking on a manufacturing mindset around fabrication of component assemblies which are then transported to the job site for final installation.
Convergence isn’t stopping at the industry level. Jarod explained that it’s happening across all disciplines: from design and data, to communications, and finally to the design software used by creators all day, every day. These convergence trendlines are coming together while other initiatives, such as digital twin and integrated factory modeling, are also taking place, changing the face of construction in the process.
Convergence on all fronts is forcing creators to work with cloud solutions and run multiple power-hungry applications at the same time. This massive compute and RAM consumption would be too much for most systems to handle. Jarod recently upgraded to a HP Z2 G9 Mini Workstation Desktop PC based on 12th Generation Intel® Core™ i9 processors and has been amazed by all that it can take on. He sat down and shared his reaction to the performance, efficiency, and experience of using his new Intel-powered workstation.
I’m excited to see where convergence continues to take us over the next three to five years and how Intel technologies can continue to help creators adapt to new challenges and industry changes.
Jarod’s session was not recorded. However, you can read his blog post about bringing technical innovation to the construction space and watch a video about the ways he uses his new Intel-powered workstation.
Wrap up | See you at Autodesk University 2023
I’m bringing the information gathered, knowledge shared, and insights gained back to the Intel team to ensure our hardware—CPUs and GPUs—as well as our software are designed to address the challenges facing the AU attendees. From data convergence to heavy processing, our team will continue its work with our ecosystem of partners and customers to innovate on the essential components to make the best possible workstations and devices for creators around the world.
We look forward to connecting and sharing at next year’s Autodesk University.
Watch Pam Hayes’s Tech Trends panel discussion (Login required)
David is an Intel alum and recently re-joined the company as the Marketing Manager for the Intel Create program. Prior to his current position, David managed Intel’s Internet of Things (IoT) digital marketing and social media outreach. He has roots grounded in the Digital Content Creation (DCC) segment where he synthesized technology trends and insights across end-users and defined product strategies that helped establish Intel leadership in Mobile Client Platforms.
At home, David is happily married, is passionate about creativity media and as a struggling guitarist loves all music. In his spare time, he volunteers at Medical Teams International and has three grandkids under the age of six-years that keep him busy.