Intel buys AI startup Habana Labs for $2 billion

NEW DELHI: Intel has acquired Israel-based artificial intelligence firm Habana Labs for about $2 billion, the chipmaker said on Monday, in a bid to strengthen its fast-growing data-center business.

As PC sales have stagnated, Intel has increasingly been depending on its sales to data centers, which provide behind-the-scenes computing power for mobile and web-based apps. Those apps, in turn, rely on artificial intelligence for features like photo and speech recognition.

“More specifically, Habana turbo-charges our AI offerings for the data center with a high-performance training processor family and a standards-based programming environment to address evolving AI workloads,” Navin Shenoy, general manager of Intel’s data platforms group, said in a statement.