CES 2024 kicks off Jan. 9 in Las Vegas and organizers previewed the massive event Thursday with news that Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger will keynote on that day.
Gelsinger and the entire CES event will be focused heavily on the impact of AI. “AI is fueling a fundamental shift, driving interconnectivity between technology and humanity,” he said in a statement. “At the center of this transition is silicon.”
Most of what Gelsinger says at CES is likely to frame the company’s grand vision of AI as a follow up to Intel’s introduction of new chips at a December 14 announcement in New York, which will also be streamed. At Intel Innovation in September, Gelsinger described the theme of “AI Everywhere,” from data centers to PCs to a plethora of edge devices, especially automobiles. Gelsinger is speaking to reporters just prior to CES 2024 on the theme of “How Intel automotive drives intelligence into every mile.”
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Intel Core Ultra processors will launch on Dec. 14 to power a line of AI PCs from the likes of the Acer Swift, among others, while Intel’s fifth -generation Xeon chip for data center servers, long promised, is described by the company as “ready to handle your demanding AI workloads before you need to add discrete accelerators.”
Intel’s prime competitor in AI chips will have a place at CES -- GPU dominator Nvidia, which is providing a streamed special address on Jan. 8.
Intel is a distant second to Nvidia in GPU chip sales, but Intel sees its latest Xeon chips and other accelerators as a means of processing data in AI training and inference jobs. Another competitor in the space, AMD, just launched on Wednesday its Instinct MI300X, a GPU which CEO Lisa Su first displayed at CES 2023 nearly a year ago.
As an indicator of the importance of AI chips, the launch of AMD’s Instinct chip helped boost AMD stock 7% and the company expects $2 billion in revenue from them next year. Su has predicted a $400 billion-plus market for AI chips in 2027, and it is clear that Intel and AMD hope to compete with Nvidia.
Whether CES 2024 becomes an even bigger competitive arena for AI chipmakers is arguably less important that the broad array of technologies that will be on display—as usual. Many of the consumer devices on display and a variety of products and innovations in early stages of development will rely on AI functionality, or will be promoted as such.
Qualcomm has also emerged as an AI chip leader, and CEO Cristiano Amon will make a keynote appearance on Jan. 10 at CES 2024. Hyundai and KIA will exhibit at CES for the first time, continuing the appearance of a wide array of automakers at CES. Additionally, HD Hyundai CEO Kisun Chung will keynote on Jan. 10.
Consumer Technology Association CEO Gary Shapiro and other CTA officials said the coming CES will have 10% more showfloor space than in 2023, reaching 2.4 million square feet across several massive Vegas venues, including the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Venetian. There will be 3,500 exhibitors, including 1,000 startups and more than half the Fortune 500.
CES 2023 attendance topped 117,000 attendees, which was 70% bigger than the prior year, when the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was still being felt. Officials did not offer a prediction for attendance for the coming 2024 event, however.
Gelsinger will speak at 5 p.m. PT on Tuesday, Jan. 9 in the Venetian, and his keynote will be streamed on the CES app, available for iOS and Android devices. A CES 2024 registration is required for login. His keynote will also be streamed at Intel.com/CES.