Intel Acquires Chip Design Firm Ineda Systems To Supercharge Discrete GPU Development

It’s no secret that Intel is developing a discrete GPU family that it will use to take on many sectors in the graphics market. The company will put a primary focus on the gaming sector (where it will go toe-to-toe with AMD and NVIDIA) and also professional and enterprise markets.

We’re learning today that Intel is hoping to bolster its efforts to create a discrete GPU with the acquisition of Ineda Systems. Financial details of the transaction are scare at the moment, but we do know that it was an all-cash deal. Ineda was founded in 2011 and is based in Hyderabad, the booming tech-centric capital city of India’s Telangana state. 

Ineda is a fabless chip design firm that creates low-power SOCs that are used for consumer- and enterprise-class installations. The company specializes in artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and IoT technology (among other things). Intel is actively involved in all three of those sectors, but it primarily wants the engineering talent that Ineda has to offer. Intel was keenly interested in around 100 Ineda engineers that are skilled in graphics hardware design.

"Intel acquired engineering resources from Ineda Systems, a silicon and platform services provider based in Hyderabad," said an Intel spokesperson in a statement. "This provides Intel with an experienced SOC (system on chip) team to help build a world-class discrete GPU business."

Intel is building its discrete GPU from scratch, allowing it to be free from any [potentially performance robbing] legacy design decisions from past products. The company has been actively recruiting engineering talent, as witnessed by a video that it posted to Twitter late last month. Intel’s Core and Visual Computing Group – which is tasked with the GPU’s development -- is helmed by Raja Kodori, who formerly headed up AMD's Radeon Technology Group.

"It's kind of like putting a very complex Lego structure this is what the best engineers want to do," said Koduri in the recruitment video. "And we have access to all the right Lego blocks in this company.

"I want a future where we can have those photorealistic immersive worlds. I want to have games with virtual worlds that are as large as this entire universe."

Intel is expected to unveil its new GPU some time in 2020.