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Intel Plans Chip to Boost Computer Performance
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To meet the challenge, new programming languages are being created and technology leaders are encouraging computer science departments at universities to bulk up in courses in parallel processing.
An array of technical possibilities -- in language interpretation, robotics and visual recognition -- depend upon increased processing power.
Some game firms, such as Crytek and Valve, have hailed the advances. But multi-core chips present massive and expensive difficulties.
Executives at Microsoft initially balked at the idea when they met with Intel several times about four years ago.
At the first one, Pat Gelsinger, a senior vice president at Intel, described why the company intended to start developing multi-core and then many-core chips. Gelsinger had been warning the industry of the imminent change for years.
Though Microsoft had been researching the multi-core area since 2001, company officials had hoped to delay the transition.
"It was like, 'thanks very much for your input, Pat. Now, it's wrong, go fix it,'" Gelsinger recalled of the response from Gates and other Microsoft engineers.
Gates and Microsoft were "testing Intel's real sense of needing to make this architectural shift," Microsoft said in a statement. The statement added: "In 2004 it became clear this shift would begin in earnest by the end of the decade."
