上周二，英特爾推出了一款全新的面向企業服務器和云數據中心的微處理器芯片，據稱其性能比此前預期的還有較大提升。

作為芯片業務的老牌龍頭，近年來英特爾在利潤豐厚的服務器芯片業務上也遭到了多家競爭廠商的圍剿。英特爾表示，它的Xeon Scalable處理器運行普通服務器任務的速度平均是上一代處理器的1.65倍。為了提高硬件速度，英特爾還對芯片軟件進行了一些調整。但該芯片的性能躍升幅度是否真有這么大，還有待于外部專家的確認。不過據華爾街和業內人士預計，Xeon Scalable處理器的性能確實有相當不錯的提升，只不過其幅度沒有英特爾自家爆料的那么夸張。

英特爾數據中心集團副總裁麗莎·斯佩爾曼在上周二的發布會前對《財富》表示：“它代表了我們20年數據中心創新史的最高水平。”她表示，上一代的該型芯片是去年三月才推出的。“這是相當了不起的，這將繼續為我們的客戶帶來性能上的突破。”

不過從上周二英特爾發布會上幾家客戶企業的發言來看，此次發布的新芯片帶來的性能提升或許并沒有那么大。比如AT&T公司首席戰略官約翰·多諾萬就指出，在使用了新一代Xeon芯片后，他們公司的系統性能大約提升了30%。

英特爾在企業服務器芯片和云數據中心芯片市場上的占有率超過了90%，但它面臨的競爭依然是十分激烈的。英特爾CEO布萊恩·克蘭尼克曾表示，哪怕以犧牲利潤率為代價，也要更快地改進服務器芯片的性能。

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隨著人工智能和機器學習技術越發流行，英偉達也研制出了更適合這些技術的圖形處理芯片。上個月，超微半導體公司也推出了一款兼容英特爾硬件的芯片，取名為Epyc。據說它不僅性能更出色，而且還具備節能和節省成本等優點。而有些自行運營數據中心的科技企業（如谷歌）也在研制自家的定制芯片。

在多家競爭對手的重重圍剿下，投資人們也開始感到擔心了，尤其是今年第一季度，英特爾服務器芯片業務的收益增長額僅為6%。上周一，杰富瑞集團分析師馬克·里帕希斯對英特爾股票給出了“賣出”評級。他指出：“作為一家市場份額占主導地位的老牌企業，我們認為（英特爾）是最有可能走下坡路的。”

英特爾的股價今年以來已經下跌了7%。上周二英特爾發布新款Xeon芯片后，其股價基本沒有變化。而英特爾的主要競爭對手英偉達的股票今年已累計上漲了44%，Xeon芯片的發布并未對英偉達股價產生任何影響。超微的股票則上漲了1%，從年初至今，超微股價已累計上漲了22%。

性能更快

英特爾表示，其新芯片的性能之所以提高如此之多，部分原因是由于在每個芯片的不同組件之間增添了更多的快速連接功能——比如在處理核心和存儲器上。這種新型的“網狀架構”與超微的“無限連接”架構也頗有異曲同工之妙。

雖然英特爾直到上周二才正式推出了Xeon芯片，但是在此之前，它已經將大約50萬顆左右的該款芯片賣給了谷歌等一些大客戶，并允許多家企業就該芯片的性能進行測試。在上周二于紐約市舉辦的一場活動上，有一些試用了這款新芯片的企業進行了“現身說法“。其中甲骨文的12c數據庫的性能提高了1.3倍，百度搜索引擎的性能提高了1.7倍，愛立信的視頻編碼速度提高了1.5倍。所有這些性能的提高既要歸功于這些新芯片，也要歸功于相關的軟件升級。

盡管英特爾并未得到最新的超微Epyc芯片，不過英特爾表示，在超微公司上個月披露的性能測試中，英特爾新款Xeon Scalable芯片的某個版本至少與Epyc芯片的性能相當，甚至更強。超微曾表示將提供Epyc芯片的單槽產品，這相對于英特爾的雙槽芯片有較大的成本優勢。

英特爾表示，它并不認為超微的單槽芯片能完全滿足任務需求。斯佩爾曼表示：“他們之所以如此不遺余力地拿單槽做文章，并非由于單槽最符合客戶的利益，也并非由于它能滿足數據中心的所有需求，而是因為它在基準性能測試中能取得一個好成績。”

面對英偉達在顯卡上的咄咄逼人，英特爾近來已經不再打嘴炮了。超微最近也推出了一款性能更強悍的Vega顯卡。Xeon芯片雖然可以較好地執行一些人工智能領域的任務，但對于如何有力回擊顯卡領域的挑戰者，英特爾似乎尚未給出最終的答案。目前英特爾正在整合消化它去年收購的一家創立僅兩年的人工智能芯片創業公司Nervana Systems的技術，以研發一款名叫Lake Crest的新芯片。

斯佩爾曼表示：“英特爾正在投資研發性能更加優化的芯片。”(財富中文網）

譯者：樸成奎

Intel introduced a new line of microprocessor chips for corporate servers and cloud data centers on Tuesday, with a larger claimed boost in performance than expected.

Under siege on all sides in its lucrative server chip business, Intel said its new Xeon Scalable processors were 1.65 times as fast on average as its prior generation at common tasks run by servers. The huge jump included tweaks to software specially designed to speed up tasks with Intel's chips and will have to be confirmed by outside experts. But Wall Street and the industry had been anticipating a more modest performance increase.

"This represents the best of our 20-year history of data center innovation," Lisa Spelman, vice president of Intel's data center group, told Fortune ahead of last?Tuesday's presentation, noting that the prior chip generation just came out in March last year. "That's huge. That's a lot to continue to deliver on the performance beat rate to our customers."

Several customers speaking at Intel's event on last Tuesday disclosed more modest improvements. AT&T chief strategy officer John Donovan said the telecommunications giant had seen a 30% performance increase after deploying new Xeon chips.

Still, Intel's over 90% share of chips sold in computers that run corporate servers and cloud data centers remains under fierce attack. CEO Brian Krzanich has committed to improve server chips more quickly than in the past, though at the expense of profit margins.

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But Nvidia is pitching its graphics processing cards as a better solution for running the kinds of artificial intelligence and machine learning tasks that are becoming increasingly popular. And Advanced Micro Devices last month launched a line of Intel-compatible chips called Epyc that it said provided better performance while saving energy and costing less. Some data centers owners like Google are working on making their own custom chips, as well.

Investors have been growing increasingly concerned about the challenges, particularly after Intel reported a revenue increase of only 6% for its server chip business in the first quarter. On last ?Monday, Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis slapped a "sell" rating on Intel's stock. "As the incumbent with dominant share, we think (Intel) has the most to lose," Lipacis wrote.

Shares of Intel, which were down 7% so far this year, were about unchanged on? last Tuesday after Intel unveiled the new Xeons. Shares of competitor Nvidia, which have gained 44% so far this year, were also about unchanged and shares of AMD, up 22% in 2017, rose 1%.

Faster Performance

Intel said its new chips increased performance in part by adding more fast connections between different components on each chip, such as the processing cores and the memory storage. The new "mesh architecture" sounded a lot like AMD's "infinity fabric" that it touted in the Epyc chip along similar lines.

Although Intel was formally introducing the new Xeon chips on?last Tuesday, it has already sold about 500,000 to some large customers such as Google and allowed many more to benchmark the performance of the chips. At an event in New York on last Tuesday, Intel planned to report some of the customer benchmarks, including that Oracle saw 1.3 times faster performance running its 12c database, Baidu saw 1.7 times faster search performance, and Ericsson speeded up video encoding by 1.5 times. All of the improvements included the impact of both the new chips as well as software tweaks related to the chips.

And although Intel did not have access to AMD's new Epyc chips, the company said comparable versions of its new Xeon Scalable line matched or beat the performance of Epyc chips on the benchmarks tests that AMD revealed last month. AMD has said it will offer single chip packages, known as a one-socket product, that will serve the needs of many customers who have been buying double chip, or two socket products, from Intel, potentially generating big cost savings.

Intel says it doesn't think the AMD one-socket chips will be up to the task. "They may be pushing that one-socket conversation so hard not because it's in the best interests of their customers or because one-socket solutions address all data center needs, but because they've achieved a good result on a benchmark," Spelman said.

The company has been less chatty about the challenge posed by graphics chips from Nvidia and AMD is launching a new line of souped up graphics chips dubbed Vega shortly, as well). The Xeon chip can do some AI tasks well, but Intel's more direct answer to the graphics chip challengers is still in the works. The company is integrating technology it acquired buying two-year-old AI chip startup Nervana Systems last year for a new line of chips dubbed Lake Crest.

"Intel is investing in much more optimized silicon," Spelman says.