Intel VPU To Be Found On All Meteor Lake SKUs, Intel Seeding Open-Source Projects

Intel this week is using Computex 2023 to make some disclosures around next-generation Meteor Lake processors for laptops. The most exciting aspect relayed in advance during our press briefing last week was that all Intel Meteor Lake processor SKUs will feature their new Vision/Versatile Processing Unit.

For months I've been covering the Intel open-source work on their new Versatile Processing Unit driver for Meteor Lake hardware. That VPU driver was upstreamed in Linux 6.3 and user-space software like AI apps continue making preparations to make use of this AI accelerator IP block. This Meteor Lake VPU is based on Movidius IP that Intel acquired several years back and in some communications is also referred to as a Vision Processing Unit.

It's very interesting and refreshing to see Intel mentioning this new VPU block on "all SKUs" for Meteor Lake. It's great that they aren't artificially segmenting it to higher-end processors or particular SKUs. Given the increasing use of AI in software, this is a great move. (It's also great that the Intel VPU won't be gated by anything either like Intel On Demand [nee Software Defined Silicon].)

Similarly exciting me is Intel's continued work around the open-source software ecosystem.

Intel's also seeding open-source projects for boosting their AI efforts such as around Blender, Audacity, The GIMP, and OBS.

The Meteor Lake VPU is one of several interesting aspects coming with next-generation laptops later this year.