Intel, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Cisco and other tech giants have announced the formation of the Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) Promoter Group, a strategic move aimed at curbing Nvidia’s dominance in the AI accelerator market.
The group, which also includes AMD, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Broadcom, aims to develop a new industry standard for high-speed, low-latency communications for scalable AI systems in data centers, competing directly with Nvidia’s NVLink.
The group’s proposal, UALink 1.0, allows the connection of up to 1,024 AI accelerators within a computing pod, allowing direct memory loading and storage between accelerators such as GPUs. The UALink Consortium, expected to be established in the third quarter of 2024, will oversee the development. UALink 1.0 is expected to be available around the same time, with a higher bandwidth update, UALink 1.1, planned for Q4 2024.
Nvidia under fire
Sachin Katti, SVP & GM, Network and Edge Group, Intel Corporation said: “UALink is an important milestone for the advancement of artificial intelligence. Intel is proud to co-lead this new technology and bring our expertise to creating an open, dynamic AI ecosystem. As a founding member of this new consortium, we look forward to a new wave of industrial innovation and customer value delivered through the UALink standard.”
Gartner estimates that AI accelerators used in servers will total $21 billion this year, growing to $33 billion by 2028. AI chip revenue from computer electronics is expected to reach $33.4 billion by 2025. Microsoft, Meta and Google have already invested billions in Nvidia hardware for their clouds and AI models, and are understandably trying to reduce their dependence on the company that controls an estimated 70% to 95% of the AI accelerator market.
Conspicuously absent from this initiative is Nvidia, for understandable reasons. The company is naturally reluctant to support a rival standard that could call into question its own NVLink technology and potentially weaken its significant market influence.
Forrest Norrod, AMD’s GM of Data Center Solutions, said: “The work being done by the companies in UALink to create an open, high-performance and scalable accelerator structure is critical to the future of AI. Together we bring extensive experience creating large-scale AI and high-performance computing solutions based on open standards, efficiency and robust ecosystem support. AMD is committed to contributing our expertise, technologies and capabilities to the group, as well as other open industry efforts to advance all aspects of AI technology and strengthen an open AI ecosystem.”