DL Boost (deep learning boost) is a name used by Intel to encompass a number of x86 technologies designed to accelerate AI workloads, specifically for the acceleration of inference.

Overview

DL Boost is a term used by Intel to describe a set of features on their microprocessors designed to accelerate AI workloads. The term was first introduced with Cascade Lake. DL Boost includes the following features:

• AVX-512 Vector Neural Network Instructions (AVX512_VNNI), first introduced with Cascade Lake (server) and Ice Lake (Client)
• AVX-512 BFloat16 Instructions (AVX512_BF16), first introduced with Cooper Lake. This extension offers instructions for converting to bfloat16 and then performing multiply-accumulate on two bfloat16 values.

Implementations

Microarchitecture	AVX512_VNNI	AVX512_BF16
Client
Ice Lake (Client)	✔	✘
Server
Cascade Lake	✔	✘
Cooper Lake	✔	✔
Ice Lake (Server)	✔	✘
Sapphire Rapids	✔	✔
Granite Rapids	TBD	TBD

See also

• bfloat16
• Neural processors
• Acceleration