Intel already reported its own separate GPU in 2015

On a slide of an Intel presentation from 2015, the chip company already mentioned a ‘Cannonlake’ GPU that could be integrated as an accelerator on a Skylake SP package. Intel therefore seems to be working on separate GPUs longer than expected.

Intel presented the slide at an HPC conference in Poland in 2015, as part of a presentation on Purley, the codename for the Skylake SP-Xeons. Ashraf Eassa of The Motley Fool noted that the respective slide mentions ‘Cannonlake graphics & media transcode’ as an optional integrated accelerator for Xeon processors based on Skylake EP.

Since Cannonlake is produced at 10nm and Skylake SP at 14nm, it would be a separate component that would be integrated on package. The final presentation of the Skylake SP-Xeons lacked options for integrating fpgas and the Cannonlake Gen10 GPUs. Nevertheless, it seems from the slide that Intel has been planning to develop separate GPUs for some time, in addition to the integrated GPUs that the company produces on die.

Last week Intel had some notable announcements in the GPU area. The company will place Radeon GPUs on the same package as Core processors and it will hire Raja Koduri to develop high-end GPUs. Koduri comes from AMD’s Radeon division and will lead Intel’s Core and Visual Computing Group. The new division was created to develop GPUs for data centers and client computers.