Intel’s Promise to IISc is 10 AI PCs, for Now

This month, Intel announced the establishment of its AI PC Experience Development Centres at two premier institutions: the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru and the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH). With this, it aims to equip students and researchers with state-of-the-art resources and mentorship to innovate AI applications with significant potential across diverse sectors.

At the core of this initiative are Intel’s latest Core Ultra Processors, featuring an integrated combination of CPU, GPU, and NPU to efficiently manage AI workloads on PCs. Through this, Intel seeks to redefine how PCs are used—enhancing productivity, creativity, security, gaming, and more—while broadening access to AI tools for students and researchers.

At the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024, Gokul Subramaniam, president of Intel India and VP of the Client Computing Group, spoke about the company’s focus on India as one of its key markets, outlining its future plans. Intel’s vision is ambitious: It aims for 100 million AI PCs in the market by 2025, with 40 million units already projected for completion by the end of 2024. 

What Will the Impact Be?

The development centres at these institutes are equipped with advanced hardware and software tailored for AI research and development. Beyond infrastructure, Intel actively supports students and faculty through collaboration and mentorship. 

Its technologists provide hands-on guidance to help build proof-of-concept applications and prototypes across various fields, fostering practical experience in real-world AI solutions. “Our technologists are mentoring students, faculty, and departments to develop AI PC concepts and explore diverse applications,” Subramaniam said.

Discussing this development with AIM, Govindan Rangarajan, director of IISc Bangalore, said that researchers will be exposed to the latest computational frameworks (hardware and software) in AI. “This can spur research in several fields, specifically when it comes to education, which can be teaching coding to young children. This partnership can also help accelerate the adoption of AI in basic sciences,” Rangarajan said.

He also revealed that Intel has agreed to provide 10 AI PCs to IISc, but more will be made available as and when the need arises.

Apart from the development centre, Intel also worked with IISc to set up four different research programmes focused on computer architecture, LLMs, memory performance, and networking. “These are fundamental things that are very important for the next generation of AI in India,” said Subramaniam.

Highlighting the importance of IISc, Subramaniam said that the most important aspect of the university is not its students but the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of the campus. “You have mechanical and civil engineers, robotics, architecture design, and a number of other aspects that come together to make AI more pervasive,” he said. 

Likewise, AMD has also been actively looking at Indian universities to establish its presence and upskill students. Last year, it partnered with IISc to advance AI and HPC research in India.

Gilles Garcia, senior director business lead, data centre communication group at AMD, told AIM, “We have a strong relationship with universities. We provide additional training to students and then bring them onto a very established internship programme.” He explained how AMD has established an excellent pipeline for engineering graduates in India. 

AMD’s AI strategy in India follows ground-up and top-down approaches. “We always monitor the value we can deliver and the value others can bring to us,” he said about investing in AI startups in India. 

Last year, AMD pledged to invest $400 million in India over five years in R&D, but Lisa Su, AMD’s CEO, on her recent visit to IISc said, “It’s very likely we will reach that sooner, given the rate and pace of investment and innovation that is going on.” 

She announced that AMD is also building two supercomputers in partnership with the Indian government, which will be announced soon.

Population-Scale Impact

Rangarajan said that as AI is increasingly being adopted in the industry, it is important for scientists to have access to the latest industrial advances to pursue impactful research. “AI can be a game-changer for India. To achieve this potential, it is important that the private sector drives investment into research through manpower, data, and computation,” he added.

When it comes to Intel, Subramaniam explained that one of the key challenges that these programmes are trying to solve is to build population-scale solutions that can leverage AI and have a meaningful impact on people in various segments of society. “Not only consumers or enterprises, but even governments, smart cities, transportation, and agriculture—a lot of these areas which can benefit from AI—can be sorted and integrated into these campuses,” he added.

In the same way, Subramaniam said that if we could bring this equitable technology to every school in Bengaluru, including government schools, it would have an even greater impact. 

“India has over 300 million students, with about 10-20 million enrolled in government and private schools in Karnataka alone,” Subramaniam said. He believes that giving these students access to technology in the labs as well as personal computing devices, IoT devices, or science projects is key to India’s future leadership. 

Besides building AI PCs and solutions, Intel is also undertaking skill development work with the governments of the Indian states. “We conducted the AI readiness programme across the nation and are really excited to be able to continue that and do it in a much more amplified manner in the local ecosystem in Karnataka,” added Subramaniam.

Intel, with the government of Karnataka through the Nipuana Karnataka project, wishes to offer AI PCs to every student from primary to K-12. “If universities can adopt it, even government schools can adopt it.” He said that the same learnings from universities should be applied to schools. 

The Nipuna Karnataka project announced by the Government of Karnataka last week aims to upskill 100,000 professionals and create jobs for at least 70% of them by 2025. To support this initiative, Karnataka has partnered with leading global tech companies including Microsoft, Intel, Accenture, and IBM. 

For the last few years, Intel has been working with various institutions in India under the Unnati AI Labs programme. It provides students with AI PCs and prepares them for the future of generative AI with certifications. 

Moreover, Intel Xeon 6 processors also power the data centres in the country. Intel’s work has contributed to nurturing and building small design companies in the city and the state. “And a lot of that has been nurtured out of the talent that we have built in Bangalore,” added Subramaniam.

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