DL Boost (deep learning boost) is a name used by Intel to describe a set of x86 technologies designed for the acceleration of AI workloads, including both inference and training.

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 but has since been extended further with more capabilities in newer microarchitectures.

DL Boost includes the following features:

• AVX-512 Vector Neural Network Instructions (AVX512_VNNI) - an instruction set extension that introduces reduced-precision (8-bit and 16-bit) multiply-accumulate for the acceleration of inference. VNNI was first introduced with Cascade Lake (server) and Ice Lake (Client)
• AVX-512 BFloat16 Instructions (AVX512_BF16) - an instruction set extension for converting to bfloat16 and then performing multiply-accumulate on such values for the acceleration of both inference and training. BG16 was first introduced with Cooper Lake.

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