Intel Adds AI & Machine Learning Instruction Set For Arrow Lake-S & Lunar Lake CPUs

wccftech.com:

Intel has provided an update on instruction support for the next-gen Arrow Lake-S & Lunar Lake lineup, verifying support for several new instructions.

According to the "Architecture Instruction Set Extensions and Future Features" document released by Intel, the upcoming Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake CPU lineups will come with extensive support for instructions. The document reveals the inclusion of AVX-VNNI-INT16, SHA512, SM3, and SM4 instructions focused on artificial intelligence tasks.

The instructions might seem tricky to interpret, but in simple terms, the AVX-VNNI instruction enables the processor to perform operations for neural networks more efficiently. This results in improved performance in applications that requires machine learning. The instruction is vital since the recent influx of AI-based programs is often unoptimized and requires high computing performance.

Interestingly, Intel is still avoiding bringing AVX-512 support to consumer-level chips which means that AMD Ryzen CPUs are going to have a clear advantage in that regard. Intel demoed its 1st-gen AI accelerator on Meteor Lake CPUs at Computex 2023 which you can read more about here. There are only hints that we might see AVX-512 in future chips but nothing is confirmed so far.

Intel has additionally added support for SHA512, SM3, and SM4 which will offer secure hashing and encryption since they are cryptographic algorithms. This is essential for applications requiring data security and authentication. Hardware support for these algorithms allows the processor to perform hash calculations and encryption/decryption operations much faster than software-based implementations.

Apart from the next-gen lineup, the document has also added support for the upcoming