Intel® Infrastructure Processing Unit (Intel® IPU) and SmartNICs
Programmable network devices that intelligently manage system-level resources by securely accelerating networking and storage infrastructure functions in a data center.
Service providers and enterprises are investing heavily in hyper-scale data centers to deliver efficient compute for cloud native applications and micro-services. The applications delivering these services must have access to high-speed, low latency storage and a secure networking infrastructure.
However, infrastructure services such as virtual switching, security, and storage can consume a significant number of CPU cycles. Infrastructure Processing Units (IPUs) accelerate network infrastructure, freeing up CPU cores for improved application performance. IPUs enable cloud service providers to customize infrastructure function deployments at the speed of software, while improving data center utilization by allowing for flexible workload placement.1 2
Learn More About Intel® IPUs
Watch Guido Appenzeller, Datacenter and AI CTO, and Naru Sundar, Ethernet Products Group Architect, unveil new IPU products along with architectural details of an exciting new IPU device from Intel.
Intel® Infrastructure Processing Unit (Intel® IPU)
Intel® IPU C5000X-PL Platform
High-performance Cloud Infrastructure acceleration platform with 2x25GbE network interfaces. It has the capability to support Cloud Infrastructure workloads such as Open vSwitch, NVMe over Fabrics and RDMA over Converged Ethernet v2 (RoCEv2).
Accelerate your data center with Intel® FPGAs ›
IPU-based cloud infrastructure: the fulcrum for digital business ›
Intel® IPU (200G FPGA + Intel® Architecture)
Intel’s next-generation high-performance Cloud Infrastructure acceleration platform with 2x100GbE network interfaces. In addition to supporting Cloud Infrastructure workloads such as Open vSwitch, NVMe over Fabrics and RDMA over Converged Ethernet v2 (RoCEv2), it has an integrated hard crypto block, which enables securing these workloads at line rate.
Accelerate your data center with Intel® FPGAs ›
IPU-based cloud infrastructure: the fulcrum for digital business ›
Intel® IPU (200G SoC)
200G IPU, co-developed with a top cloud provider and designed for performance at scale.
IPU-based cloud infrastructure: the fulcrum for digital business ›
SmartNICs
Intel® FPGA SmartNIC N6000-PL Platform
High performance Intel® Agilex™ FPGA-based SmartNIC Platform providing 2x100GE connectivity designed to support hardware programmable acceleration of Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVi) as well as Virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) for 4G/5G deployments.
Silicom FPGA SmartNIC N5010
The first hardware programmable 4x100GE FPGA-accelerated SmartNIC that enables next generation IA-based servers to meet the performance needs of Next Generation Firewalls. The solution is flexible enough to enable communications service providers (CoSPs) to support Internet Protocol Security (IPsec), vFirewall, and Segment Routing Version (SRv6) workload capability in an IA server with a reprogrammable FPGA-based SmartNIC.
Intel® FPGA PAC N3000
Accelerates network traffic for up to 100 Gbps to support low-latency, high-bandwidth 5G applications. It allows you to create custom-tailored solutions for Virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) and core network workloads and achieve faster time to market with the support of industry-standard orchestration and open-source tools.
Build an open, next-generation virtualized radio access network (vRAN) ›
Intel® IPU for Enterprise and Cloud
Data Center Acceleration with Intel® FPGAs
IPUs with Intel® FPGAs for cloud service providers help make the most of network capabilities and help improve revenue from infrastructure investments.
Intel’s IPUs to Power VMware’s Next-Gen Infrastructure
Intel technology enables VMware to give customers unified management of virtual machines, containers and bare metal environments.
IPU-Based Cloud Infrastructure: The Fulcrum for Digital Business
As Cloud Service Providers consider their investment strategies and technology plans for the future, learn how IPUs can offer a path to accelerate and financially optimize cloud services.
Intel® IPU and SmartNICs for Network
Intel SmartNICs for Telecommunications
Intel® FPGA–based SmartNICs can help optimize the efficiency and performance of your converged wireless-wireline network.
FPGA Virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN)
Unlock new use cases and increase network efficiency with Intel’s broad portfolio of network accelerators, combined with Altiostar’s 5G-ready open virtualized radio access network (Open vRAN) software solution.
Intel, Kaloom Create P4-Programmable Network Solutions
Advanced network systems with the P4 programming language and Intel® Tofino family of Ethernet switch ASICs.
Real-World IPU Benefits
Discover what customers and partners have to say about the benefits of IPUs from Intel.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a SmartNIC?
A SmartNIC is a programmable network adapter card with programmable accelerators and Ethernet connectivity that can accelerate infrastructure applications running on the host.
What is an IPU?
An IPU is an advanced networking device with hardened accelerators and Ethernet connectivity that accelerates and manages infrastructure functions using tightly coupled, dedicated, programmable cores. An IPU offers full infrastructure offload and provides an extra layer of security by serving as a control point of the host for running infrastructure applications.
What is the difference between a SmartNIC and IPU?
An IPU is capable of offloading the entire infrastructure stack from the host and can control how the host attaches to this infrastructure. This gives the service provider an extra layer of security and control, enforced in hardware by the IPU. A SmartNIC has similar networking and offload capabilities as the IPU but remains under the control of the host as a peripheral.
How do IPUs from Intel work?
An IPU is capable of offloading the entire infrastructure stack from the host and can control how the host attaches to this infrastructure. This gives the service provider an extra layer of security and control, enforced in hardware by the IPU. A SmartNIC has similar networking and offload capabilities as the IPU but remains under the control of the host as a peripheral.
What is the Intel® FPGA IPU C5000X-PL platform architecture?
An Intel reference architecture that provides service providers and solution providers an efficient and cost-effective design to build production deployable IPU for the cloud data centers.
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Product and Performance Information
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Intel has a diverse portfolio of acceleration solutions to meet the evolving needs of network, cloud and enterprise workloads.