Intel Corp. today introduced the Arc A-Series, a new line of standalone graphics processing units for laptops.

Intel has long provided integrated GPUs as part of its ubiquitous central processing units. However, the company historically didn’t make available standalone GPUs, which aren’t integrated with a laptop’s CPU but rather run as a separate component. Such chips are considerably faster than the CPU-integrated graphics cards Intel has been offering so far.

The launch marks an important milestone in the company’s effort to expand its focus beyond CPUs to other parts of the chip market. To grow its market presence, Intel has invested in developing chips optimized for tasks such as running AI models and powering 5G infrastructure.

The Arc A-Series comprises three individual GPU lines. The first, Arc 3, targets thin-and-light laptops and is available for preorder today. It will be joined later this year by the Arc 5 and Arc 7 chip lines, which are designed to power more powerful machines.

The basic building block of Intel’s consumer GPUs is the Xe core. It serves a similar role as the processing cores in a CPU. 

Last August, Intel stated that each Xe core includes 16 computing units optimized to carry out calculations that involve vectors. A vector is a mathematical structure that GPUs use extensively when running videogames and artificial intelligence models. Each Xe core also includes 16 computing units optimized for matrix operations, a type of calculation that neural networks use to turn data into insights.

The circuits optimized for matrix operations “have 16 times the compute to complete AI inferencing operations when compared to traditional GPU vector units,” Roger Chandler, the vice president and general manager of Intel’s Graphics and Gaming Team, explained in a blog post.

Intel’s new Arc A-Series chips comprise not only Xe cores but also other types of circuits. The company detailed that some of those circuits are optimized to perform ray tracing, a graphics rendering technique used by many video games. GPU market leader Nvidia Corp. also provides support for the technology in many of its consumer graphics cards. 

Intel has equipped the Arc A-Series with several features that harness the CPUs’ Xe cores, ray tracing modules and other circuits to speed up laptop performance. 

One feature, Xe Super Sampling, uses AI to enhance video games’ graphics automatically. The GPUs also include a module dedicated to encoding and decoding video stored in the AV1 file format. Intel says that AV1 is 50% more efficient than H.264, today’s most widely used video encoding format.

At the operating system level, Intel’s engineers have made the Arc A-Series compatible with DirectX, a video game technology that Microsoft Corp. ships as part of Windows. The technology enables videogames to carry out calculations more efficiently on a Windows computer’s CPU and GPU. This increased efficiency translates into higher performance.

Intel’s new GPUs support DirectX 12 Ultimate, the latest release of DirectX. The release includes ray tracing features, as well as a capability that enables videogames to increase and decrease the amount of GPU resources they use automatically as processing requires change. This latter capability allows developers to optimize the user experience in a more fine-grained way.

According to Intel, many of the first laptops that will feature Arc A-Series GPUs will also include CPUs from its newest Alder Lake processor line. Such laptops can use a technology called Intel Deep Link to increase performance. The technology automatically adjusts the amount of electricity routed to a machine’s GPU and CPU based on which of the processors plays a bigger role in running an application.

“Intel Deep Link enables dynamic power sharing, intelligently distributing power across the platform to increase application performance up to 30% in creation and compute-intensive applications,” Chandler detailed. The new GPUs are Intel’s first standalone graphics cards for the laptops.

Intel is also targeting the desktop GPU segment as part of its growth strategy. Today, alongside the launch of the Arc A-Series, the company previewed an upcoming graphics card for desktops. Intel didn’t share the chip’s specifications, stating only that it will debut in the summer. 

The company previously disclosed that its AGX division, which includes its GPU business, will generate more than $1 billion in revenue this year. Intel is aiming to grow the division’s revenue to $10 billion in 2026. 

Image: Intel