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.