<story><title>Intel will add deep-learning instructions to its processors</title><url>http://lemire.me/blog/2016/10/14/intel-will-add-deep-learning-instructions-to-its-processors/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yid</author><text>This aspect of their new chips is massively underrated. An FPGA  is the future-proof solution here, not chip-level instructions for the soup-du-jour in machine learning.&lt;p&gt;Edit: which is not to say that I&amp;#x27;m not welcoming the new instructions with open arms...</text></item><item><author>dsabanin</author><text>Intel is also adding FPGAs[1] right next to their CPUs, which can possibly become a next big thing in HPC.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.extremetech.com&amp;#x2F;extreme&amp;#x2F;184828-intel-unveils-new-xeon-chip-with-integrated-fpga-touts-20x-performance-boost&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.extremetech.com&amp;#x2F;extreme&amp;#x2F;184828-intel-unveils-new-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>sbierwagen</author><text>Blogspam, kinda. Post just links to &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;software.intel.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;managed&amp;#x2F;69&amp;#x2F;78&amp;#x2F;319433-025.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;software.intel.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;managed&amp;#x2F;69&amp;#x2F;78...&lt;/a&gt; and says it mentions two new instructions:  AVX512_4VNNIW (Vector instructions for deep learning enhanced word variable precision) and AVX512_4FMAPS (Vector instructions for deep learning floating-point single precision)&lt;p&gt;On Intel&amp;#x27;s part, it seems kinda... late? It&amp;#x27;s like adding Bitcoin instructions when you already know everyone&amp;#x27;s racing to make Bitcoin ASICs. How could it beat dedicated hardware, or even GPUs, on ops&amp;#x2F;watt? Maybe it&amp;#x27;s intended for inference, not training, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t sound compelling either.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>astrodust</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not as hyped about FPGA-in-CPU so much as I am of having Intel release a specification for their FPGAs that will allow development of third-party tools to program them.&lt;p&gt;Right now the various vendors seem to insist on their own proprietary &lt;i&gt;everything&lt;/i&gt; which makes it hard to streamline your development toolchain. Many of the tools I&amp;#x27;ve used are inseparably linked to a Windows-only GUI application.</text></comment>
<story><title>Intel will add deep-learning instructions to its processors</title><url>http://lemire.me/blog/2016/10/14/intel-will-add-deep-learning-instructions-to-its-processors/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yid</author><text>This aspect of their new chips is massively underrated. An FPGA  is the future-proof solution here, not chip-level instructions for the soup-du-jour in machine learning.&lt;p&gt;Edit: which is not to say that I&amp;#x27;m not welcoming the new instructions with open arms...</text></item><item><author>dsabanin</author><text>Intel is also adding FPGAs[1] right next to their CPUs, which can possibly become a next big thing in HPC.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.extremetech.com&amp;#x2F;extreme&amp;#x2F;184828-intel-unveils-new-xeon-chip-with-integrated-fpga-touts-20x-performance-boost&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.extremetech.com&amp;#x2F;extreme&amp;#x2F;184828-intel-unveils-new-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>sbierwagen</author><text>Blogspam, kinda. Post just links to &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;software.intel.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;managed&amp;#x2F;69&amp;#x2F;78&amp;#x2F;319433-025.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;software.intel.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;managed&amp;#x2F;69&amp;#x2F;78...&lt;/a&gt; and says it mentions two new instructions:  AVX512_4VNNIW (Vector instructions for deep learning enhanced word variable precision) and AVX512_4FMAPS (Vector instructions for deep learning floating-point single precision)&lt;p&gt;On Intel&amp;#x27;s part, it seems kinda... late? It&amp;#x27;s like adding Bitcoin instructions when you already know everyone&amp;#x27;s racing to make Bitcoin ASICs. How could it beat dedicated hardware, or even GPUs, on ops&amp;#x2F;watt? Maybe it&amp;#x27;s intended for inference, not training, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t sound compelling either.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>greendragon</author><text>It will only really take off if they can get the user experience of getting a HDL program to the FPGA to the same level as getting a shader program to the GPU. Unless they can do all that in microcode though it&amp;#x27;s going to force them to open up some stacks of Altera&amp;#x27;s closed processes. I&amp;#x27;m hopeful but there&amp;#x27;s a lot of proprietary baggage around FPGAs that I think have kept them from truly reaching their potential.</text></comment>