Industry Intel–SambaNova Collaboration Is One Answer to NVIDIA’s Groq Partnership, After It Became Clear GPUs Alone Can’t Dominate Inference Muhammad Zuhair • at EDT Add on Google Inference is the next area of focus for compute providers, and after the NVIDIA-Groq partnership, the AI industry has realized it needs far more than just GPUs. This has led to a new pair emerging: Intel and SambaNova. Intel's Xeon 6 CPUs Will Act as the Host For Agentic Systems, Backed SN50 Chip For Decode At this year's GTC, we saw NVIDIA talking about disaggregated inference, and how it has become important for them as a manufacturer to shift from their 'GPU-only' mentality, and instead bring in a relatively newer form of compute units into the infrastructure race. With the Groq licensing agreement, we saw the SRAM-based LPUs debut in Rubin's LPX racks, and now Intel and SambaNova have decided to experiment with something similar, unveiling a new "inference architecture" featuring SambaNova's RDUs with Intel's Xeon 6 CPUs. Related Story Intel Silently Launches Core Ultra X7 378H; Identical Specs To Ultra X7 368H But Not Exactly The Same SambaNova today announced the next phase of its collaboration with Intel: a heterogeneous hardware solution that combines GPUs for prefill, Intel® Xeon® 6 processors as both host and “action” CPUs, and SambaNova RDUs for decode to deliver premium inference for the most demanding Agentic AI applications. - SambaNova This arrangement aims to target RDUs for decode workloads, with GPUs handling prefill work and Xeon 6 CPUs handling tasks such as orchestration and general-purpose work. The Intel-SambaNova partnership doesn't lock in a specific hyperscaler for the GPU option, meaning you could integrate ASICs in this configuration as well, though SambaNova didn't go into much detail about GPU-specific performance. SambaNova will integrate their SN50 units, which we'll discuss in a bit, and, along with this, the firm says they found Xeon 6 CPUs as the ideal for "end‑to‑end coding agent workflows" compared to ARM options. Image Intel's approach with SambaNova and NVIDIA's is that the former focuses more on a 'safer' bet, given that it doesn't need to provide a hefty underlying infrastructure for disaggregated inference. For hyperscalers looking for a more modular rack-scale offering that targets the "prefill + decode" breakdown, the Intel-SambaNova option is a decent bet. We were expecting Intel to go much deeper with RDU integration, but it seems, for now, it might be limited to just the Xeon CPU as the host option. Intel's CEO has participated in SambaNova's latest funding round, and Lip-Bu is also an early investor in the company. There were plans to acquire them as well, but they were reportedly halted after a board disagreement, which is why Intel has settled on being a funding participant. About the : Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology for , specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel. Follow on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds. Further Reading Intel Nova Lake CPUs Feature Xe3 Graphics & Xe3P Display/Media Engines Intel To Continue Focus On Raptor Lake CPUs & Hybrid DDR5/DDR4 Motherboards As PC Building Costs Rise Intel Silently Launches Core Ultra 7 251HX Processor: 6 P-Core+12 E-Core Configuration And 3 Xe GPU Cores Intel Updates Nova Lake-S 42 Core To 44 Core In Dual Compute Tile CPU Config Read all on Intel–SambaNova Collaboration Is One Answer to NVIDIA’s Groq Partnership, After It Became Clear GPUs Alone Can’t Dominate Inference
