Nervana Systems for Intel

Intel is acquiring Nervana Systems for $408 million in its bet towards Artificial Intelligence to shift the way its corporate data centers operate. "There is far more data being given off by these machines than people can possibly sift through," said Intel's VP Jason Waxman. Intel's interest on Nervana is its approach towards AI. Intel has been working to bring machine-learning to chips, rather than simply making software that runs on top of people's computers. Led by former Qualcomm researcher Naveen Rao, the company has raised $35 million in venture funding, and has contract with In-Q-tel, the U.S. intelligence community's venture arm. Intel is having a dominance in the chip creating industry. The company is operating from the position where it has strength to dominate many of its competitors. Acquiring Nervana means that Intel is moving in the opposite direction from the many that embraced smartphone revolution. Intel is more into investment in Internet of Things. "There's always a next wave," said Waxman, highlighting that corporate computing has already gone from mainframes to client-server and now to cloud computing. "I firmly believe this is not only the next wave but something that will dwarf the last wave." "This is a real thing at Baidu; this is a real thing at Google," he said. "They are using deep learning techniques. It is not just papers any more." The acquisition of Nervana also marks the first big exit for Andy Rubin's Playground Global, which was one of its investor.