'Intel will lead next-gen computing transformation'

Intel India Country Head and Vice President of the Data Centre Group at Intel Corporation, Nivruti Rai believes that innovation is a process of people creating value through the implementation of new ideas. In a candid chat with N V Vijayakumar of DH, she shares her experience of driving innovation in the company at a time when data is disrupting the market. Excerpts:

How do you view innovation?

To me, innovation means the process of creating value through the implementation of new ideas. Think of it as ideation, execution, and marketing. During ideation, individuals are willing to take risks, which is followed by execution, wherein a group of people believe in the vision stated, and help achieve it.

Finally, marketing helps shape business strategy to add value to the specific idea and the overall vision.

In this context, the role of a technology ecosystem, including startups, is key, and their role is to combine hardware, software, firmware, and application capabilities, to make innovation a reality.

Can you share Intel India’s contribution in driving innovation?

India plays a vital role in Intel’s relentless focus on accelerating technology and innovation. In the years since its inception, Intel India has grown to become a mature R&D organisation, and is the largest design centre outside the US, for Intel. The team here is engaged in delivering cutting edge engineering work across hardware and software.

These capabilities include areas such as SoC design, wireless connectivity, graphics, software and platform for the data centre, devices and IoT markets involving advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS), 5G, etc.

How do you carry out research in these areas?

We have been collaborating with the government, academia and industry to augment innovation and research in these key areas. For example, Intel India through our ‘Maker Lab’ incubation programme, has been working with the Department of Science & Technology(DST), Government of India, and SINE, IIT-Bombay, to support hardware and systems-based startups through mentoring, lab facilities, prototyping, business services and funding.

The first batch of startups from this initiative have already developed their products and solutions in key technology areas like AI, IoT, and Augmented Reality.

Similarly in the research space, we have a collaborative programme with DST for ‘real-time river water and air quality monitoring’, under which four projects have been awarded to the leading scientific and technical institutes – IITs and IISc. The other research areas where we are engaged with the academia are ADAS, machine learning and AI for healthcare.

Can you share your thoughts on AI and ML?

I believe that AI is driving the next wave of computing, transforming the way businesses operate and how people engage in every aspect of life.

This AI revolution is being fuelled by the explosion of data. It requires the ecosystem to focus on data collection, training, and inferencing, to derive value.

While data is the base layer, AI is an umbrella that encompasses elements such as machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision.

For instance, we can use AI for computer vision in the automotive segment, for bio medical imaging in health, and for analytics in FinTech. Intel has a full stack AI portfolio ranging from dedicated computer architectures, libraries and compilers like Intel nGraph and tools and frameworks to enable high performance, turnkey, full stack and user-friendly systems that can be quickly deployed and employed to accelerate the AI innovation cycles.

This portfolio delivers leading AI solutions from edge-to-cloud for our ecosystem partners and developers.

We are also driving AI inferencing which is required for a majority of the use cases.

How is Intel driving AI?

Specifically in India, nearly 70% of organisations across verticals are expected to deploy AI within the next year, indicating mainstream adoption.

Intel is uniquely positioned to lead the next generation of computing transformations in India because of its hardware and software platforms for building AI applications, combined with its efforts to democratise AI through developer engagements, as well as deep industry collaborations.

We have strategically invested in the development of the ecosystem in India to propel ideation and innovative application of AI. To set context, more than 20,000 developers, students, and professors across 90 plus organisations have been educated on some of the most critical AI tools and solutions.

We have also collaborated with TCS to establish an AI Centre of Excellence for accelerating the development of AI solutions. The CoE collaborates with academic communities to develop new algorithms for AI, support AI research projects, and enhance teaching content in classrooms