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Intel announced its acquisition of Israeli AI-chipmaker Habana Labs on December 16, 2019, describing the price as approximately $2 billion. Intel’s later SEC filing recorded total consideration of $1.7 billion. Those are different figures from different company disclosures: the announcement’s rounded description and the filing’s accounting figure.
What Intel acquired
Habana Labs developed programmable deep-learning accelerators for data-center AI workloads. Intel said the acquisition would expand its data-center AI accelerator offering, and that Habana would remain based in Israel.
Intel described two product lines with distinct roles:
| Product | Role Intel described |
|---|---|
| Gaudi | Processor family for AI training, designed for system scale-up and scale-out. |
| Goya | Commercially available processor for AI inference. |
Training is the process of fitting a model to data; inference is using a trained model to produce outputs. Intel presented Habana’s products, development environment and accelerator capabilities as a way to strengthen its data-center AI solutions.
#1 Best Overall
- System Compatibility Note: This 2-slot card measures 271 x 112 x 39 mm and requires a single 12V-2x6-pin power connector. Please verify chassis and PSU compatibility before purchase.
- Dedicated Support: Please contact us directly through Amazon for any product questions or assistance you may require.
- Professional Intel Arc Pro B70 GPU: Built on the Intel Xe2-HPG architecture, it features 32 Xe cores and 256 XMX engines, designed to accelerate AI, rendering, and complex visualization workloads.
- Massive 32GB GDDR6 VRAM: Equipped with 32GB of high-speed GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, running at 19 Gbps, which allows for handling large AI models and complex datasets locally.
- High-Performance Engine Clock: Delivers an engine clock of 2540 MHz, providing the compute power needed for demanding professional applications and AI inference.
Why reports give two different prices
Intel’s December 16, 2019 announcement called the acquisition price approximately $2 billion. Intel’s 2020 Form 10-K, filed with the SEC in 2021, reported $1.7 billion in total consideration for the acquisition. The company’s announcement and filing therefore use different figures and descriptions; the filing does not establish that Intel later revised the announced purchase price.
The filing also reported $1.5 billion of goodwill and $250 million of acquisition-related intangible assets, primarily in-process research and development. These are purchase-accounting allocations, not additional prices to add to the $1.7 billion total consideration.
Rank #2
- System Compatibility Note: This 2‑slot card measures 271 mm (L) x 112 mm (W) x 39 mm (H) and uses a 12V‑2x6 power connector. It consumes up to 200 W. The package includes a 12V‑2x6 to dual 8‑pin adapter cable. Please verify chassis clearance and ensure your power supply is properly rated before purchase.
- Dedicated Support: Please contact us directly through Amazon for any product questions or assistance you may require.
- Optimized for Professional Workloads with 32GB GDDR6: Powered by 32GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192‑bit interface running at 19 Gbps, this card delivers a massive 608 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is ideal for local AI model inference, LLM deployments, large‑scale rendering, and heavy multitasking without relying on cloud resources.
- Next‑Gen Intel Xe2-HPG Architecture with AI Acceleration: Built on Intel’s Xe2-HPG architecture, it features 20 Xe cores and 160 Xe Matrix eXtension (XMX) engines, delivering up to 197 TOPS of INT8 AI compute power. It is equipped with 3rd Gen Ray Tracing and 2nd Gen AI Accelerators to significantly speed up demanding AI and rendering workflows.
- PCIe 5.0 Support for Maximum Bandwidth: Uses a PCI Express 5.0 x16 interface, providing ample data throughput for high‑speed data transfers, ensuring large models and datasets move efficiently between storage and GPU.
When the deal was announced and closed
Intel announced the acquisition on December 16, 2019. Its SEC filing states that the acquisition closed on December 12, 2019—four days before the public announcement.
Intel’s stated strategic rationale
Intel framed the purchase as part of a strategy to offer AI solutions for different performance needs, from the intelligent edge to the data center. In the announcement, Navin Shenoy, then Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Data Platforms Group, said: “This acquisition advances our AI strategy, which is to provide customers with solutions to fit every performance need – from the intelligent edge to the data center.” That quotation was Intel’s statement about its own strategy, not an independent assessment of the deal.
Quick Recap
Rank #4
- Intel Optane 16gb Internal Flash Accelerator - Pci Express - M.2 2280 - Pci Express - M.2 2280
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