Intel Spins Off Enterprise Generative AI Deployment Firm Articul8

Intel and the global investment firm DigitalBridge Group have formed an independent generative AI software stack company, Articul8 AI, Inc. (Articul8); Intel announced the new company on Jan. 3. Articul8 will work with Intel and provide solutions for organizations that wish to build and deploy generative AI.

Articul8’s product and capabilities

Articul8’s product is “a turnkey GenAI software platform that delivers speed, security and cost-efficiency to help large enterprise customers operationalize and scale AI,” according to the press release. Specifically, Articul8 provides infrastructure, a managed data layer, large language models and APIs for generative AI. Some use cases might be:

• Deploying generative AI for cybersecurity tasks such as threat detection.
• Gaining insights into data and generating designs in engineering.
• Using AI data in semiconductor manufacturing.
• Enhancing telecommunications operations.
• Identifying market trends and generating insights in finance.

SEE: Here’s what the EU’s AI Act establishes for the generative AI industry (TechRepublic)

Articul8’s software runs on Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Intel Gaudi accelerators, but it can work on other infrastructure as well. In service of providing flexibility for enterprise users, Articul8 can work with Intel, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and NVIDIA.

Articul8 is following in the footsteps of today’s enterprise AI trends by offering on-prem deployment and by making sure its AI capabilities keep company data, customer data, training and inference within an enterprise security perimeter. It is designed for organizations with high levels of security and specialized domain knowledge.

The origins of Articul8

Articul8 was spun out of Intel and uses IP and technology developed there. The CEO of Articul8 is Arun Subramaniyan, who formerly served as vice president and general manager in Intel’s Data Center and AI Group. The two companies will work hand-in-hand and collaborate while operating independently. Intel funded Articul8, as did DigitalBridge Ventures and other venture investors.

“With its deep AI and HPC domain knowledge and enterprise-grade GenAI deployments, Articul8 is well positioned to deliver tangible business outcomes for Intel and our broader ecosystem of customers and partners,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger wrote in the press release. “As Intel accelerates AI everywhere, we look forward to our continued collaboration with Articul8.”

The project that would become Articul8 has been incubating for two years at Intel and was used at Boston Consulting Group, Rich Lesser, global chair of Boston Consulting Group, said in a press release.

“Since then, we have deployed Articul8 products for multiple clients seeking production-ready platforms with rapid time to market,” said Lesser.

“We are excited about the significant opportunity ahead of Articul8, which is reinforced by this investment to accelerate its growth and innovation,” said Subramaniyan in an email to TechRepublic. “Articul8 has a significant opportunity ahead, and this transaction allows Intel to continue to participate in any Articul8 future value creation activities.”

Competitors to Articul8

Other companies working on providing full-stack generative AI development and deployment capabilities for enterprise include Intel, IBM, HPE, AWS, Dell, Databricks and Google.

As more and more enterprises seek use cases for generative AI, more gen AI providers are working on creating a full-stack service that offers enterprise-level security as opposed to the more commercial, publicly-trained models and use cases.