Intel was recognized for providing opportunities for innovative technology research in Fast Company’s 2020 list of Best Workplaces for Innovators. Fast Company collaborated with Accenture to identify 100 organizations that empower employees at all levels to improve processes, create new products, or invent new ways of doing business.
Intel supports innovation ranging from blue sky thinking to practical product development. The company invests in both internal research and development functions, as well as incubators and venture funding. Last year, more than $13 billion was invested in R&D, making Intel one of the world’s top five R&D companies. Additionally, every year the company earns about 3,000 patents.
Intel is widely recognized as an innovation leader. But the real story of our innovation leadership is not just in our heritage — it’s in how we are transforming our innovation model to address the explosion of diverse computing needs in an always connected world.
Interdisciplinary approach to innovation
Intel Labs, the principal research engine at Intel, drives innovative technologies that unleash the exponential power of data. Intel Labs brings a focused, interdisciplinary approach to innovation in an effort to deliver breakthroughs that can scale for broad societal impact. Intel Labs campuses around the world bring together more than 700 researchers from over 30 technical disciplines with varied cultural backgrounds and perspectives to fuel a diversity of thought and creative problem solving.
Intel Labs researchers work on a range of advanced technologies, including futuristic architectures like quantum computing, neuromorphic and probabilistic computing, machine programming, and new algorithms to solve challenges in a way that can quickly scale to benefit people worldwide.
As part of new compute models research efforts, Intel Labs recently introduced Horse Ridge, a new cryogenic control chip that will speed up the development of full-stack quantum computing systems. In addition, Intel continues to scale up its neuromorphic system offering based on Loihi. Intel Labs recently released Pohoiki Springs, a new neuromorphic research system capable of simulating the power of 100 million neurons. It is a major step on the path to supporting bigger, more sophisticated thinking. The system lays the foundation for an autonomous, connected future, which will require new approaches to real-time, dynamic data processing.
Intel is also one of the leading proponents of university research partnerships and open collaboration. The company invests annually in university research programs that span numerous technology areas, from 5G to automation and beyond.
Technology insights program
Intel’s Technology Strategic Long Range Planning (TSLRP) program draws on hundreds of senior technologists to identify and investigate emerging technology trends that could significantly disrupt the future of business and the broader industry.
Many of the company’s most prominent and ambitious research efforts have emerged from this process — including quantum, neuromorphic, probabilistic, and brain-inspired computing. Some examples of technologies in production today that have their roots in TSLRP discussions include virtualization technology for cloud computing, low-power processors, many-core processors, trusted execution technology, silicon photonics, and heterogenous integration technology.
Through innovation, Intel is evolving from a PC and server company into a technology leader, committed to excellence and focused on unleashing the potential of data to create value for people, business, and society on a global scale.