Intel at Computex Swings From PCs to IoT, 5G and Robotics

Intel officials discussed the PC’s changing role as one of the growing numbers of devices and systems that are connecting to the Internet, cloud and each other.

It was a large audience that gathered for Intel’s keynote at the show to listen to Shenoy as well as Diane Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of the company’s Data Center Group (DCG), talk about the chip maker’s future.

Intel unveiled the Xeon E3-1500 v5 “Skylake” chip, which combines Xeon’s performance with Intel’s Iris Pro graphics P580 to address the growing demand for video. At the show, Bryant demonstrated the chip powering immersive, 360-degree video streamed live from New York’s Blue Note Jazz Club.

The vendor introduced the Core i7 Extreme Edition “Broadwell-E” processor, which offers up to 10 cores, 25MB of cache and four memory channels, and supports PCIe and Thunderbolt 3.0. Intel officials said the chip is aimed at “mega-taskers” like games and content creators.

The Core i7 Extreme Edition also will play a role in such emerging markets as virtual reality (VR), according to Intel’s Shenoy.

Gregory Bryant, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s Connected Home and Commercial Client, joined Shenoy at the show via a hologram powered by the new Core i7 Extreme Edition.

On display during the keynote were a variety of PCs. In his blog, Shenoy noted that some PC segments—including two-in-ones and mini-PCs, actually are growing at double-digit rates.

Asus Chairman Jonney Shih, right, joined Shenoy on stage to introduce Zenbo, a home robot built by Asus and powered by Intel technology.

Fang-Ming Lu, corporate executive vice president of Foxconn (left), and Intel’s Bryant announced a partnership to develop network infrastructure technologies to accelerate the transition to 5G, which will be key to driving the IoT’s growth.

Intel is continuing to extend where the low-power Atom platform can be used, in such products as point-of-sale systems and industrial IoT devices. At the show, Shenoy announced that Intel, Chunghwa Telecom and SanJet Technology are collaborating to create a connected transportation platform solution using Atom x3 chips.

Bryant, QCT President Mike Yang and Don Hsi, chairman of Viscovery Group, said they will partner to bring machine learning technologies to market. Hsi noted that Viscovery used QCT’s QuantaPlex servers powered by Intel’s Knights Landing Xeon Phi chips for video search tasks.