Intel recently held a launch event for a new China-specific version of its Gaudi 2 processor for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, and this new version is compliant with the latest US sanctions on China-bound AI and GPU processors. The new version cuts down the card's scale-up interconnect, which somewhat limits the performance of AI servers on its base. To some degree, this will help with the massive shortages of AI GPUs, such as Nvidia's A100 and H100, as well as the cut-down A800 versions that Nvidia has also created specifically for its China customers.
Intel has two Gaudi 2 versions that come in the 600W OCP model form factor. The regular version, called Gaudi 2 HL-225H, has 24 x 100Gbps RDMA (RoCE v2) interconnects, whereas the cut-down version of the product, called Gaudi 2 HL-225B, has 21 x 100Gbps RDMA (RoCE v2) scale-up interconnects. The reduced number of scale-up interfaces reduces the performance of AI servers based on this version of Gaudi 2, but keeping in mind the huge demand for AI capabilities in China, it will likely be popular regardless.
