Intel teams up with universities worldwide for research

Mumbai: Intel Corporation has announced a global effort to prepare university students for a new paradigm of software development as Intel transitions its processors from single-processor engines to ones that will have multiple cores and threads. This evolution will transform software design and require entirely new thinking and innovation in order to leverage this kind of processing power, Intel said in a press release.

As part of its higher education programme, Intel is providing 45 of the world's top universities, including US, Russian, Chinese, Indian, Mexican and Taiwanese institutions, with expertise, funding, development tools, educational materials, on-site training and sustained collaboration with Intel to incorporate multi-core and multi-threading concepts into their computer science curricula.

By the end of this year, Intel expects more than 75 per cent of its mainstream server, desktop and laptop PC processors to ship as dual-core processors; with four-, eight- and many-cores.

"To usher in a new generation of computing technology and bring creative new products to market, it's crucial to educate tomorrow's software developers to architect, develop and debug the next generation of software for modern, multi-core platforms," said Renee James, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel's Software and Solutions Group.

"The full potential of multi-core based systems to deliver great performance and expanded usages is unleashed when software is designed to take advantage of the full capabilities of the machine. Working with the world's best universities, Intel is creating the future for performance computing," he added.

Universities participating in the worldwide effort include Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Michigan and University of Washington, as well as leading academic institutions across Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan and several European countries. The first courses will be offered during the fall term this year and Intel expects hundreds more universities to participate in 2007 and beyond.