Intel will start making GPUs, a market dominated by Nvidia

Intel Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan announced that the company will start producing graphics processing units. The announcement came at the Cisco AI Summit. Graphics processing units are specialized processors used for gaming and for training artificial intelligence models. Intel has traditionally produced central processing units. The project will be overseen by Kevork Kechichian, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's data center group, according to reporting from Reuters. Kechichian was hired in September. Intel also hired Eric Demers in January for the effort. Demers previously spent more than 13 years at Qualcomm, most recently serving as senior vice president of engineering. The initiative remains in relatively early stages. Tan said the company plans to develop its strategy around customer demands and needs. Nvidia holds a commanding market lead in graphics processing units for artificial intelligence systems. The company did not invent the graphics processing unit, but the chips have played a large role in its success. TechCrunch reached out to Intel for more information.