Intel has a brand new chipset designed for edge computing which takes the company’s Xeon brand outside of the server environment and into the IoT, including smart cars. The Intel Xeon D-2100 SoC boasts up to 18 Skylake-server cores and is set up for as many as four 10Gbps Ethernet ports but is designed to work at the network edge and on the web tier. Moreover, it comes with up to 100Gbps of built-in decryption and encryption acceleration. As of this writing, Intel hasn’t provided any specifics about the clock speed of this SoC but it has said the chip will only use between 60W and 110W of power, depending on its implementations. If the speed of the chip is comparable to others sold under the “Skylake” model designation, the Xeon D-2100 should be more than capable of handling all of its target applications.
Intel says its new chipset is designed to take advantage of emerging opportunities resulting from new devices, networking environments, and the growing use of the cloud to augment processing. The most obvious use would be in connected cars, which will need to process vast amounts of information very quickly even in circumstances where they aren’t being propelled down the road by A.I.-driven systems. However, Intel expects the Xeon D-2100 to be useful in far more implementations than just meeting the requirements of self-driving vehicles or connected cars. The company hence plans to advertise the chips to any market where heavy-duty computing is needed at the edge of a network, such as with connected retail locations like Amazon’s Go Stores or in conjunction with Walmart’s Scan and Go platform.
In the meantime, another mystery still to be solved is the price point at which Intel will be selling its new SoC. Because the IoT is beginning to enter the market at a much higher rate, that’s a metric that will undoubtedly have an impact on whether or not the Intel Xeon D-2100 succeeds in penetrating those markets to a substantial degree. Intel is not the only chipmaker pursuing these types of solutions. With that said, this obviously isn’t a chipset meant for consumer use. Instead, the SoC will most likely be sold either as part of Intel’s self-driving vehicle and IoT platforms being built with partners, or individually for use with similar third-party technologies.
