Just as Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich opens the regular staff meetings before a dramatically reduced IDF2015 Shenzhen conference, it is a good time to review how government and enterprises don’t see eye to eye when it comes to strategic business.

China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer is world’s fastest supercomputer, at 33 PFLOPS demonstrated and 55 PFLOPS theoretical performance.

Remember the Tianhe-2 machine at Guangzhou Supercomputer Center, the current World’s number one according to Top 500 Supercomputer list? Unlike some other China supercomputers – Tianhe-2 is fully Intel based machine,  the world’s largest assembly of Intel Xeon CPUs and Xeon Phi accelerators.

Even after Intel ‘opened the kimono’ and gave a nearly 70%  discount on its processors and accelerators, it has given Intel, and therefore US technology sector a major foothold in China and Asian region as such. Over the course of past two years, we were involved in a lot of discussions with Intel staff who were not privy to see the financial impact of the deal — and even argued our undoubtedly solid information. We’re not here to report how things should be, or are in marketing and investor presentations to its numerous staff, but how things really are.

During 2015, the Tianhe-2 supercomputer was supposed to be doubled in its size, up to 110 PFLOPs peak, again using the very same Intel processors and accelerators. Since now these are mature products with lower real manufacturing cost for Intel, they could finally make some real money.

Well, it was not to be: our tweety bird from the window chirped to us that Uncle Sam has put this supercomputer centre, together with National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, the system’s creators, and Tianjin centre, among others, on so a so-called “Denial List”, which prevents any high technology from the USA to be sold to these sites. Our sources used even harsher words.

Knowing that these several sites alone are expected to order some 250+ PFLOPS of compute in the next few years (around 500,000 top-end Broadwell-EP Xeon E5v4 processors, or  approximately $1 billion high margin list price) and they were THE Intel friendly ones, this is quite a loss to Intel, thanks to Uncle Sam.

But, what’s worse strategic loss in time is that, based on this decision as an excuse, indigenous China high end processor architectures can now push the government to gradually remove any dependence on US. This means just one thing: an AMD or Intel x86 processor technology is increasingly becoming errata non grata. Should the Chinese government react in force, it will give the Chinese vendors the blank check support to go all the way a developing their Alpha, POWER and MIPS processors for both the government and the mainstream commercial use.

You may think they are not up to the mark, but remember how fast British ARM architecture became the dominant processing architecture in the world. And this group doesn’t need to worry about the antiquated x86 ISA, worry about satisfying the dumbed down shareholder masses, or overpaying their marketing and sales staff, as well as the fat check, golden parachute-protected CxOs.

They have taken the best that the USA has developed (some of key Alpha, GPGPU and MIPS architects left US over the course of past four years, a lot of them due to non-renewed visas) and discarded due to corporate shenanigans, and the continued developing it much farther than anyone expected both on hardware and software side.

Five years ago, ShenWei showed a CPU that performed faster than the fastest GPUs of the time. Now, fifth generation is approaching, slotting between Tesla and FirePro GPGPUs and next-gen Xeon Phi accelerators. However, this is not an accelerator or a GPGPU – this is a CPU.

So, thanks to Uncle Sam, China might not have a 110 PFLOPS Intel based supercomputer but it definitely will launch a 100 PFLOPS system based on upcoming 64-core, TFLOPS-class ShenWei Alpha, with true blue CPUs possibly faster per socket then even the next generation Xeon Phi or Volta/Pascal-based Teslas.  Next, of course 100 PFLOPS Chinese POWER8 or 9 — (thank you IBM) and then possibly even Loongson MIPS – -it may come back into the high end field with renewed government support because of this Uncle Sam move. All are clean, elegant, scalable high end RISC architectures.

So who are the winners and losers from this?

NUDT and Tianhe may be the losers for now, but only short term. They will simply speed up their HPC ARM plan.

Intel comes out the big loser from this and a lot: who will want to do a phased deployment large x86 machine in China now, and worry about future phases? Then comes Uncle Sam himself: they lost even that little bit of influence on the high end China HPC. How is that for “cutting your nose to spite your face?”.

VR WORLD’s  Analysis: US government moves accelerate the Chinese CPU roadmap while curtailing juiciest sales for Intel and other US vendors.

The post Uncle Sam Shocks Intel With a Ban on Xeon Supercomputers in China appeared first on VR World.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) will not be shedding 100,000 staff as one IBM-watcher reported, the company clarified Monday.

IBM blogger Robert X. Cringely, who follows the company closely and publishes a combination of reporting as well as speculation, wrote last week the company would be laying off 112,000 of its staff — or 26% of its global workforce — in a massive reorganization project to regain profitability.

“The biggest reorganization in IBM history is going to be a nightmare for everyone,” he wrote.

IBM, however, dismissed the numbers presented as “ridiculous” saying that while layoffs would be taking place they would be not nearly as large as Cringely predicted.

A spokesperson for IBM pointed to a charge of $600 million on the company’s most recent earnings report and said this would amount to a “few thousand” people. IBM did not offer further comment on the issue.

IBM has struggled with declining revenue as the company transitions to a software services and cloud provider. It faces increasing competition from more nimble startups in that field. During its most recent earnings report, the company posted its 11th consecutive quarter of decline.

The post IBM: Reports of Mass Layoffs Have Been Greatly Exaggerated appeared first on VR World.

Electronics manufacturing is a very labor-intensive process, employing a combination of robotic and chemical processes and treatments, manual labor but above all – it is a very dislocated process.

Over the course of past 15 years, we managed to witness the manufacturing changed in its scale, employing tens of millions of people and massively reducing time to market. Still, the process takes a lot of time, and not all can be done as efficiently as possible.

There are two base components of any piece of electronic equipment on the market: chip and PCB (Printed Circuit Board) and revolution is coming to both: IBM / GlobalFoundries is working on bringing flexible wafers from the domain of concept to a mass produced parts (still, we’re 5-6 years out), while Voxel8 just launched a 3D printer that can print PCBs.

Both innovations come from the East Coast: IBM/GlobalFoundries and the University of Albany, while Voxel8 is a hardware startup founded by Dr. Jennifer Lewis, Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

During CES 2015, the company introduced its first publicly available multi-material printer that among others, can lay the conductive silver ink. Yes, a 3D printed multi-layer PCB is becoming a reality. Do not expect your next graphics card or mobile phone to be 3D printed, as precision needed is on the very leading edge (some might say over the leading edge) of what industry can make.

However, this $8,999 3D printer should enable numerous 3D printed products from the world of Internet of Things (Machine-2-Machine, embedded electronics or IoT in marketing speak).

You can see more about the product in a video below:

The post 3D Printing Electronics is a Reality Now: Meet Voxel8 appeared first on VR World.

Lenovo (HKG:0992) is the largest PC vendor in the world, and by acquiring Motorola from Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and IBM’s (NYSE:IBM) server business, the Chinese manufacturer is looking to cement its position in the mobile and server segments.

At the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Lenovo’s chief executive Yang Yuanqing stated to the Wall Street Journal that the focus for 2015 would be to “pay more attention to the integration” of Motorola and IBM’s x86 server business, acquisitions that cost the Chinese vendor roughly $5 billion.

New markets

The acquisition of Motorola opens up a series of key markets to Lenovo. The Chinese manufacturer became the fourth largest smartphone manufacturer in the world late last year, with strong sales in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. In China, Lenovo is the second largest vendor after Xiaomi.

Lenovo will be mounting a more aggressive challenge to Xiaomi with the Motorola brand, whose products will be sold exclusively online. As Motorola will not be able to match the low price strategy followed by Xiaomi (barring a few handsets like the Moto G), it is possible Lenovo will offer customization as the differentiating factor. Lenovo’s advantage lies in the fact that it is one of the few manufacturers in the country with its own manufacturing facility. The vendor has already mentioned that it will be bringing Moto Maker to China, through which users in the country will be able to customize their handsets at a level that is not possible with any other manufacturer.

Motorola will begin selling three devices in China from next month, all of which offer 4G connectivity: There’s the Moto G LTE, Moto X and a Moto X Pro, which comes with a 6-inch QHD screen. All three handsets have their strong points. The Moto G will likely be positioned as an affordable LTE-enabled handset, while the Moto X is aimed at customers looking to customize their handsets. The Moto X Pro will be targeted at users looking for a high-end phablet. 

In the US, however, Lenovo has failed to make a dent in the smartphone market, a situation that is is looking to fix with the Motorola acquisition. Yuanqing said that Lenovo will not be selling its own-branded devices in the country, instead leveraging Motorola’s brand name. Similarly, in Latin American markets, where Motorola has a strong presence, Lenovo will continue to sell Motorola-branded devices. Lenovo is not looking to turn a profit with Motorola in the short term, with Yuanqing stating that it will likely be four to six quarters before the brand starts becoming profitable.

King of servers

After a year of scrutiny from regulators in China and the US, Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) x86 server business is now final, making the Chinese vendor the third largest in the global x86 server market. Lenovo is now in charge of the System x, BladeCenter and Flex System blade servers and switches, x86-based Flex integrated systems, NeXtScale and iDataPlex servers and their associated software. Lenovo will also become a reseller for IBM storage products.

IBM’s server division will be integrated within Lenovo’s enterprise business group as the brand looks to gain a sizable chunk of the $50 billion global server market. Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s PC business back in 2005 made the vendor the third largest in the segment, and in nine years the Chinese manufacturer has managed to reach the summit. It will be looking for a similar return with the x86 server business, and has set itself the target of becoming the number one vendor in the server market in five to seven years.

Yuanqing hasn’t shared details on how Lenovo intends to achieve this feat other than saying that it will work on making the business more efficient. The server business is touted as the driver for growth for vendor in the future, and as such Lenovo will be looking to make a revenue of $5 billion from the x86 server business in the first year, accounting for 15% of the vendor’s overall revenues. Lenovo will be going after the same companies it challenged in the PC segment, HP and Dell. Yuanqing said that Lenovo’s advantage comes from working in markets with razor-thin margins.

At the end of the day, the acquisitions are geared at diversifying Lenovo’s product offerings. A bulk of the vendor’s revenues is still generated from PC sales, but the vendor is now looking to move beyond one segment in a bid to become a global powerhouse. Lenovo succeeded in turning IBM’s ThinkPad line around after it acquired it in 2005, and the signs show that it may do just the same with Motorola and IBM’s server business.

The post Motorola Acquisition Sets up Lenovo For Big Wins in 2015 appeared first on VR World.

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) may have had a financial black hole with all the tablet and phone spends over the past few years fighting the ARM incumbency. Obviously, the outlay was so bad that the whole division had to fold under the PC Client one, leaving the latter’s boss Kirk Skaugen with the tough job on the integration – or, most likely, pushing Core microarchitecture approach further down the price scale to counter the increasingly complex ARM cores.

On the other hand, the high end Enterprise division had yet another stellar year, with little competition to bother about. Xeons are everywhere, and approaching 95% of the worldwide server and related CPU market is about as good as it gets before it becomes an absolute monopoly. The cores are mature and well tuned, as well as the ecosystem from memory to I/O to boards and everything else that matters.

On that subject, Haswell brought something really important to the table, overlooked by many: its AVX2 instruction extensions now handle the more common integer, not just floating point, operations. If in the future the address calculations are added to the roster, you pretty much don’t need the old base X86 set. Most of the software that matters is already AVX optimised, and more will follow. Would a SIMD and vector style pure AVX ISA, at some point, replace the old X86 within Intel?

The post Year-End Thoughts: Intel Goes High-End in 2015? appeared first on VR World.