NVIDIA's new chief scientists criticizes Intel

NY Times had an interview with Bill Dally, who was appointed as NVIDIA's new chief scientist in late January. Dally served as chairman of Stanford University's computer science department and explains his recent move by saying that now is time time you want to be out there bringing products to the marketplace rather than writing papers. One of his tasks at NVIDIA is to lead a team of about two dozen people and look ten years out into the future and predict areas where the company should built up its expertise.

Dally believes we are on the cusp of a computing revolution and states NVIDIA's chips will get into everything from smartphones to laptops to servers. He adds that Intel isn't radical enough with the design of the Larrabee, because the chip still uses the ancient x86 architecture.

“Intel’s chip is lugging along this x86 instruction set, and there is a tax you have to pay for that,” Mr. Dally said.

Intel says that staying with x86 makes life easier on software developers familiar with such an architecture. Mr. Dally rejects this by saying Intel will need to take up valuable real estate on the chip to cater to the x86 instructions.

“I think their argument is mostly a marketing thing,” Mr. Dally said.

Mr. Dally considered working at Intel but decided against going somewhere with what he calls a “denial architecture.”

“Intel just didn’t seem like a place where I could effect very much change,” he said. “It’s so large and bureaucratic.”

You can read the full article at NY Times.