Intel looks to the future as the processor turns 40

Intel is looking forward a decade or more to try to predict what the processors of tomorrow will be used for, and sees a world where data will become pervasive while physical IT might disappear from sight altogether.

As Intel celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first microprocessor, the 4004, the company sees Moore's Law continuing for the near future at least, but said that the way technology is used and the hardware that delivers it are likely to change.

"At Intel, we're increasingly asking ourselves what people want to accomplish with computation, and then we start building from there," said Intel futurist director Brian Johnson.

But what will these future chips look like? Will they be many-core designs like Intel's Knight's Corner effort, or different types of processor core such as CPUs and GPUs combined onto a single chip?

Johnson could not shed much light on Intel's actual hardware plans for the near future, but said that there will not be a single solution for everything, or "one chip to rule them all", as he put it.

Instead, there will continue to be chips for specific form factors, such as phones, right up to the chips designed for the largest supercomputers, as is the case now.

"We've reached a point of sophistication where we're not only trying to make it faster, but figure out what you want to do with it. Just making it smaller and more efficient is not enough," he said.

Intel is looking at how to bring computation further into people's lives to make it better and more efficient, Johnson claimed.

"What I do for Intel is look 10 to 15 years out and model how people will want to use and interact with all their computation power, then sit down with the silicon architects as they are working on the 2019 and 2020 CPUs," he said.

Extrapolating from today, cloud computing and big data are trends Intel is looking at now, as well as smarter systems.

Sensors will increasingly be built into everything, so that technology may start to become invisible, yet still pervasive because it is inside everything, according to Intel's vision.

"For a consumer, it will increasingly feel like data has a life of its own. You'll have algorithms talking to algorithms, machines talking to machines, sensors talking to your phone and the cloud," he said.

"But when it comes back to you, that data has to make sense, because ultimately it has to make people's lives better."

However, we are still likely to see devices like today's smartphones and personal computers in some form, because people will still want these to interact with.

Will those systems still be driven by x86 chips? Johnson believes so. "It will be up to Intel to keep [x86] relevant, up to us to make sure we are not only creating engaging tech, but making people's lives better, and yeah, I think it will still be around," he said.