American software behemoth Microsoft has announced that it is joining forces with Intel, the world’s leading chipmaker, to invest a solid $20 million USD into the creation of new research centres located at two universities in the United States.
Microsoft and Intel sink $20 million in to Parallel Computing. Credit: MissKaren/Flickr.
Set to be built at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and University of California, Berkeley, which will combine to add a further $15 million USD to the project, the resulting research facilities will execute a specific focus on parallel computing.
Parallel computing enables computer systems to carry out processes much faster through the division of tasks across several microprocessors rather than simply relying on a solitary processor to complete each task as and when it is assigned.
“Parallelism is the path forward to the unprecedented levels of performance that are needed,” commented Andrew Chien, director of Intel research, while talking to the Reuters news agency.
The first indications of parallel computing have taken hold in the last few years with chipmakers such as Intel and AMD both releasing multiple-core processors in order to handle the demand for faster and more efficient processing while also offsetting the heat and power issues that come with it.
According to both Microsoft and Intel, the time has now come to push true parallel computing, which has been talked about for years without any real semblance of proper progress. The two industry heavyweights hope that the Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers they’re helping to fund can help make parallel computing a widely accepted reality.
Potential real-world software benefits that could emerge thanks to parallel computing technology include the likes of real-time document translation into multiple languages, digital personal health care assistants, and even marked advances in the world of robotics and artificial intelligence.
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