Breakthrough Network and Edge Performance for a
New Era of Distributed Intelligence
Network- and edge-optimized 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors drive core-to-edge workloads with power-efficient performance. The platform offers high per-core performance, substantial memory and I/O advances, as well as the industry’s most extensive set of built-in hardware accelerators.
By Dan Rodriguez
Jan. 10, 2023
Right now, a tremendous amount of change and challenge is happening in the world. Global economic uncertainty is still contributing to major supply chain issues, and that is putting pressure on costs — inventories are low, timing uncertain and prices of goods are high. The labor force is facing shortages and a lack of advanced training. And climate change is a global challenge, demanding a much more sustainable way of living and doing business.
As a result, every industry is being forced to react. First, to be more resilient in the face of uncertainty, organizations are looking to diversify and distribute operations. Second, since cost pressure and changing customer expectations are accelerating the “consumption-based economy” of as-a-service, grab-and-go, self-service options, organizations need to digitize and automate to respond much faster.
Yet at the same time, we’re seeing the convergence of three critical technologies: AI, 5G and software-defined infrastructure. When we put these technology advances side-by-side with the need for organizations to digitize and automate, we see an increasing demand for compute and platform solutions that scale outside of the data center out to the network edge and colocation facilities, and the physical world of stores, factories, and cities. In fact, by 2025, 75 percent of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside a traditional data center or cloud.1 I’ve been fortunate to participate in taking the world’s biggest networks into software-defined infrastructure, and our teams have been working with the world’s enterprises to transform legacy infrastructure in industries like retail, manufacturing, and healthcare to be software-defined and intelligent.
New 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors are critical to the foundation that makes it easier to drive this software-defined future.
Optimized for High-Performance, Low-Latency Edge and Network Workloads
4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors deliver our most powerful compute for demanding edge and network workloads. It provides significant improvements in per-core performance, introduces DDR5 memory, PCIe 5.0 and increased I/O support. And they offer the most built-in accelerators of any CPUs on the market.
Edge applications benefit from the long-life availability and industrial-grade features in a wide range of power and performance envelopes, with hundreds of repeatable market-ready solutions that enterprises can deploy quickly and at scale. Network operators get a solution to deliver sophisticated packet processing with energy-efficient performance to power virtualized network functions anywhere. They also get an agile platform to handle dramatic 5G traffic growth from user-generated content and new media types such as AR/VR.
Here are a few examples where we are seeing huge benefit:
- Edge AI: Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel® AMX) is our new hardware accelerator for AI that takes solutions based on Intel® OpenVINO™ software and the new Intel Geti™ platform to the next level of performance. With this combination of hardware and software ingredients, we enable architects and developers to do what they do best — to innovate and, in this case, quickly build high-performance AI supporting the network and edge. Click here to learn more about Edge AI and IOT use cases.
- 5G Core and virtualized Radio Access Networks (vRAN): By virtualizing their 5G networks end-to-end and standardizing on Intel architecture, network providers get a converged service advantage, running all core, edge and RAN workloads flexibly on a common platform. For 5G core workloads, built-in accelerators help increase throughput and decrease latency, while advances in power management enhance both the responsiveness and the efficiency of the platform. And with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, we are delivering about twice the vRAN capacity compared to the prior generation, without increasing power consumption.2 Click here to learn more about network use cases.
- Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Accelerators built into 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors help CDNs handle more sessions per server with less energy. Intel® Data Streaming Accelerator (Intel® DSA) moves data through the platform faster. Intel® Dynamic Load Balancer (Intel® DLB) balances the workload for thousands of connections across processor cores, optimizing resource use.
The Expanding Intel Edge Platform Portfolio
From AI- and network-optimized multipurpose compute to market-leading networking solutions, we proudly offer the most diverse edge-ready hardware in the world. Intel architecture provides a breadth of processor options to tune the balance of cost, throughput, power and space requirements for flexibility and scale from IoT endpoints to compute-intensive converged edge platforms. In addition to the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors we’re launching today, last week at CES we introduced additional products for edge workloads as part of our comprehensive range of options:
- 13th Gen Intel® Core Processors: The most popular, ultra-flexible edge performance and power options for compute-intensive user cases including real-time applications.
- 13th Gen Intel Core Mobile Processors: Power-efficient performance for AI, immersive visual experiences and compute-intensive IoT, including rugged implementations.
- Intel Atom® Processors x7000E Series: Highly integrated IoT compute platform for low power usage and simple programming, deployment, and management.
Intel platform consistency provides high software compatibility across these edge platforms, reducing development costs and timelines while simplifying deployment and operations. The Intel oneAPI programming model along with Intel OpenVINO software extends that value further, producing cross-architecture code that can execute across CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and other hardware accelerators. Intel software development tools and libraries are part of a vibrant industry ecosystem that also streamlines development of software that takes advantage of the accelerators built into 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors.
Driving the Infrastructure of the Future
Taking network operators and enterprises to the next level of software-defined, automated infrastructure means delivering on the most important requirements for the network and edge. We built 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with a workload-first approach to serve the growing demand for in-the-moment compute with near-real-time operation, long supply life, high reliability, and right-sized processors for thermal and power-constrained form factors.
The combination of CPU cores plus built-in accelerators takes us to new levels of performance, efficiency, and total cost of operation, on real-world network and edge workloads. This workload-first approach gives our customers — from network operators to retail and healthcare to manufacturing and aerospace — more performance to drive value from their compute infrastructure. Customers testify that our strong software framework and robust ecosystem are key to building their platforms on Intel architecture, which is why we’ve been investing for the last decade to have the most robust developer tools and ecosystem support. With this outstanding new processor in production, I am excited to work with the industry to continue delivering the end-to-end solutions our customers demand, powering new capabilities to help define the future.
For more information on 4th gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors for network and edge, visit: https://www.intel.com/4thgenxeon-network
https://www.intel.com/4thgenxeon-iot
1.“Computing on the Edge Can be Transformative—But Look Before You Leap,” Forbes, March 15, 2021,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/03/15/computing-on-the-edge-can-be-transformative---but-look-before-you-leap/?sh=72e7e9a56f3a
2. See [N10] at intel.com/processorclaims: 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Results may vary.
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Daniel (Dan) C. Rodriguez is corporate vice president and general manager of the Network and Edge Solutions Group at Intel Corporation. He leads the organization that defines, markets and scale solutions across the network and edge, through a variety of industry sectors. Rodriguez is responsible for the group’s product lines, business strategies and ecosystem engagements that are driving a transformation of the network for 5G and buildout of the intelligent edge.
Before assuming his current role, he was the general manager of the Network Platforms Group. In that position, he was responsible for delivering innovative technologies, solutions and business strategies for network infrastructure, spanning wireless, wireline, enterprise and cloud networking.
Rodriguez holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Arizona State University and earned his MBA degree from the University of Southern California.