Intel focuses on AI: Meteor Lake gets VPU in addition to CPU and iGPU

At Computex in Taipei, Intel provided a sneak preview of the upcoming Meteor Lake chips. Although there are no further details on the processor unit (CPU) and the integrated graphics unit (iGPU), the company has announced that all new processors will be equipped with a third unit. Intel refers to this as the Vision Processing Unit (VPU). It is intended to ensure more efficient processing as soon as artificial intelligence (AI) comes into play.

The VPU is a dedicated AI engine with low power consumption. Until now, when an AI task is pending, it has been distributed to the CPU or GPU depending on the application. The VPU can now take over some tasks from the CPU, which relieves the CPU and requires less power. Put simply, performance-hungry AI applications will continue to be processed by the processor cores - others, such as improving or modifying your camera recording during video conferences, will be handled by the new AI unit. This is particularly beneficial for notebooks, whose battery can last longer as a result.

Information on the performance of the upcoming Meteor Lake processors or the launch has not been provided by Intel. In addition to the VPU, the "Intel 4" manufacturing process of the CPU will also favour the efficiency of the new chips. Intel 4 was previously referred to as the 7 nm process. Intel will market the new iGPU under the Arc brand. It will be manufactured at TSMC and then integrated into the Metor Lake chip as a tile.

Intel will provide the new AI accelerator alongside all Metor Lake processors, taking a slightly different approach to AMD. Intel's competitor only offers its AI unit on some processors in the Ryzen 7040 series.