英特尔想靠Omni-Path独霸数据中心几无可能？

Investor Takeaway

Intel's silicon photonics research, as interesting as it is, has served as a kind of stalking horse to mask what is really a much more conventional move into data center networking. Here, Intel's push into the data center is reminiscent of its acquisition of Infineon and subsequent push into wireless modems. In 2012, Intel acquired QLogic's (NASDAQ:QLGC) InfiniBand business and the Aries Interconnect team of Cray (NASDAQ:CRAY). The merging of these organizations and intellectual property serves as the basis of Omni-Path.

Intel claims that the optical connection will migrate ever closer to the processor, but that may or may not happen. Its silicon photonics work may never provide the competitive discriminator assumed by Intel's supporters. In the meantime, INTC is left with trying to enter a market against a powerful incumbent, Mellanox. Intel is, in effect, trying to set up a proprietary network fabric product line in competition with an industry standard. Whether the data center industry will adopt Intel's proprietary standard is debatable.

Intel's Omni-Path, as currently implemented (and probably implemented for the next five years), would not preclude the use of competing processor technology based on ARM Holdings (NASDAQ:ARMH). Any system that provides a PCIE interface will be able to employ Intel Omni-Path. Far from being a lock on the data center, Omni-Path could be a high-risk venture with little real return. The conservatism of data centers that works so well in Intel's favor in processor technology works against it in network fabrics. Based on the long-term challenge faced by Intel's x86 architecture in PCs and the data center, I consider INTC a sell.