Intel Outlines Project Athena Open Labs To Optimize Future 5G Ultrabook Laptops
Intel has announced that it will open Project Athena Open Labs in Taipei, Shanghai, and Folsom, California to support performance and low-power optimization of vendor components for laptops built to its design specifications. The Project Athena Open Labs are located in key ecosystem hubs and are operated by teams of Intel engineers with SOC and platform power optimization expertise.
The three labs will commence operations in June 2019. Intel says that its expanded level of integration with the PC ecosystem will accelerate the development of advanced laptop designs and capabilities. The labs will add to the component selection process for OEMs and enable a continuous cycle of tuning and testing based on real workloads and usage models.
Intel notes that over 500 members of the PC ecosystem gathered in Taiwan for the Project Athena Ecosystem Symposium to get the first wave of Project Athena designs ready. Project Athena was announced at CES 2019 and is an Intel innovation program to help bring a new class of advanced laptops to market.
Intel expects the first Project Athena devices will be available in the second half of 2019. Project Athena leveraged Intel engineers and social scientists to develop a set of predefined key experience requirements designed to take advantage of next-gen technologies like 5G and AI across the PC platform. The Open Labs will allow independent hardware vendors to submit parts for compliance testing via Project Athena Open Labs and Intel OEM partners can nominate preferred component vendors for participation.
Each of the labs has experienced engineers to test, tune, and provide recommendations to improve power and performance capabilities across a range of laptop components and categories like audio, display, embedded controllers, haptics, SSDs, and wireless. Components will begin to be submitted to the Open Labs in the coming weeks.
Intel recently announced it was ramping Ice Lake CPU production for the holidays.
