Intel’s 80-Core Processor Delivers Supercomputer Performance

Intel’s researchers have developed the world’s first programmable processor that delivers supercomputer-like performance from a single, 80-core chip, the Corporation announced.

The 80-core chip is claimed to be not much larger than the size of a finger nail while consuming only 62 watts - less than many single-core processors today. This is the result of the company’s ‘Tera-scale computing’ research aimed at delivering Teraflop - or trillions of calculations per second - performance for future PCs and servers. For comparison, ASCI Red, the first computer to benchmark at a Teraflops in 1996, used nearly 10,000 Pentium Pro processors running at 200MHz and consuming 500kW of power.

“Tera-scale performance, and the ability to move terabytes of data, will play a pivotal role in future computers with ubiquitous access to the Internet by powering new applications for education and collaboration, as well as enabling the rise of high-definition entertainment on PCs, servers and handheld devices. For example, artificial intelligence, instant video communications, photo-realistic games, multimedia data mining and real-time speech recognition - once deemed as science fiction in Star Trek shows - could become everyday realities,” according to Intel.

Intel has no plans to bring this exact chip to market. The Tera-scale research is instrumental in investigating new processor innovations, according to chip maker.