Intel announced “ Clover Falls “, a chip dedicated to artificial intelligence that will flank the processor on notebooks of the 2021. Clover Falls, or rather the “ Visual Sensing Controller “, is described as “a chip complementary which helps make PCs smarter and safer thanks to the power of Intel artificial intelligence “.

The Visual Sensing Controller will be mounted on the motherboard of laptops, “bringing new low-power features to PCs and helping them to perceive and adapt to the surrounding environment “. There are no exact details on Clover Falls’ duties (expect them in the coming weeks at CES 2021), but Intel explained that the chip can help the system to automatically adjust the screen brightness after detecting the presence of the user : it will then be connected the webcam sensor and possibly other system components.

Clover Falls will then act as a co-processor , in charge of carrying out operations that awaken the CPU from its idle state, albeit briefly but constantly. These tasks, when entrusted to a dedicated chip, allow the central processor to remain in a deep idle mode, preserving battery life. It is currently unclear how Clover Falls will complement the AI ​​capabilities that Intel has already integrated into the last two generations of mobile CPUs, Ice lake and Tiger Lake, via the Gaussian Neural Accelerator (GNA).

L’ company has not specified which notebooks or customers Clover Falls will be destined for, but surely we will see it on board some Dell model aimed at companies . Meghana Patwardhan, vice president of Dell Latitude and Mobility Products, said that “working with Intel means more than just buying a processor that works with our product. The co-design effort involves Intel’s commitment to tackle together. unique challenges that take into account the whole system, so that we can offer extraordinary new features to business users. “

To face AMD’s competition with Ryzen (among a few weeks will be announced the mobile series 5000), Intel therefore pushes on the concept of platform , which goes beyond the processor . This is why the company is focusing on Project Athena, now Intel Evo , the certification that ensures users a close collaboration with partners to package notebooks that are efficient, responsive and fast in every respect.

The renewed competition with AMD also in the world of notebooks is therefore leading Intel to further tighten relations with partners and to work on the entire platform, dusting off in a certain sense what has been done in the past with the program “ Centrino “. On the other hand, Intel has dimensions, men and economic resources to be able to carry out a discussion of this type, while the size and availability of AMD does not allow it to do the same at the moment.