Intel's Crescent Island AI chip to rival Nvidia and AMD with cheaper memory and air cooling

Intel plans to ship its new AI chip, Crescent Island, by the end of this year. The chip uses cheaper LPDDR5 memory and air cooling, contrasting with Nvidia and AMD's expensive high-bandwidth memory and liquid cooling. Crescent Island targets inference tasks, not training, where Nvidia dominates. This follows Intel's failed Gaudi GPU for training. Kevork Kechichian, Intel's data center chief, said the chip will ship in limited quantities by year-end after 18 months of development. The effort is Intel's first AI infrastructure push under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who replaced Pat Gelsinger last year.