Intel to Battle in FPGA-as-a-Service Race

Junko Yoshida, EETimes
10/17/2017 03:00 AM EDT

MADISON, Wis. — The cloud service is changing practically everyone’s business.

Often, it forces hardware vendors’ hands, and nudges them to offer their products — at drastically reduced rates — “as a service,” rather than selling customers the hardware as a tangible product.

Car-as-a-service (“CaaS”) is one example. The concept of “miles used per vehicle” fundamentally alters carmakers’ “unit-based sales” model. It represents both a threat and an opportunity that the automotive industry can no longer afford to ignore.

The chip business could be next. “FPGA as a service” is emerging as a cloud application in data centers. If it starts to take off, how will FPGA vendors like Intel or Xilinx respond?

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