On the back of Intel’s launch of its latest 12^th generation processors, TechSmart's Ryan Noik interviews Nitesh Doolabh, the Country Lead for Intel in South Africa, on what it means for gamers, content creators and businesses alike.

RN: Why is the launch of Intel’s 12^th gen processors significant for the South African market now?

ND: Recently, South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has placed significant emphasis on the potential for South Africa to benefit from the 4^th industrial revolution (4IR) through unlocking the power of technology and creating South Africa’s own Silicone Valley. If South African businesses hope to keep up with international trends and succeed in a way the president hopes they can, they need access to high performance devices. What makes our 12^th gen processor particularly significant in South Africa’s market is our ability to provide a 40 percent increase in processing power while maintaining high levels of power efficiency.

As many remain working from home or in hybrid setups, this continued performance on mobile devices can help those whose work requires high processing performance keep up with the rest of the world, even during load shedding which threatens to reduce productivity. This ensures South Africa remains a viable location for international investment, keeps local businesses competitive, and helps South Africa keep up with the demands of the 4^th industrial Revolution.

RN: Can you speak about what kind of applications the new processors will enable for mobile systems?

ND: 12^th Gen Intel Core mobile processors deliver leadership in performance architecture. Performance cores—or “P-cores”—maximize single-thread performance and responsiveness, while efficient cores—or “E-cores”—deliver scalable, multi-threaded performance and efficient offload of background applications for modern multi-tasking.

Intel Thread Director works seamlessly with the Operation System (OS) to intelligently optimize performance—placing the right application on the right core at the right time. Thus, optimizing application work across productivity, creativity and gaming.

RN: What advantages does Intel’s new processors give gamers specifically?

ND: Gamers can look forward to unparalleled gaming experience and incredible responsiveness, even when running multiple applications. Our hybrid-performance architecture intelligently distributes heavy foreground tasks like gaming to P-cores while smaller tasks like game streaming and browsers are handled by E-cores.

RN: It seems like the latest technological advances, aimed at gamers, often finds it way down the line into other workstations. Do you think that will be the case here too?

ND: Yes. This technology was not only designed with gamers in mind. It also offers top performance for content creators, engineers, and developers, all of whom tend to push their laptop’s performance to new levels. But this technology has benefits relevant to all industries, especially those that have hybrid work models which put additional pressure on employee devices.

RN: What is your view on people needing more powerful mobile solutions in lieu of remote working and the work from home trend?

ND: There is no denying employees require more from their devices now than pre-pandemic. People are spending hours per day on video conferencing and online platforms which places significant strain on their devices. Companies are also needing improved connectivity capabilities which this technology provides.

RN: Do you think that having access to more powerful machines will help professional gamers and businesses alike compete more effectively? In the case of businesses, would it also help keep remote workers optimally productive while keeping them safe from further pandemic outbreaks (and other black swan events)?

ND: Yes, definitely. When it comes to ensuring businesses can keep work from home policies viable this technology does have the potential to help. As previously mentioned the improved connectivity capabilities remove legacy Wi-Fi interference giving employees the ability to work from home efficiently. However, in a South African context simply having a more powerful machine is not enough. The machines also need to offer efficiency to ensure employees can still be productive during load shedding.

RN: Are there other demanding applications and industries that come to mind that stand to reap the greatest advantages from the launch as well (for example, video editing, virtual reality development, engineering)? And what kind of gains can these professionals anticipate?

ND: Content creators were another group that we kept in mind when designing this technology. Our 12^th Gen Core H-series offers content creators top end performance. Notably, those using Adobe’s Premiere Pro can expect a 30% faster performance and those using Autodesk’s Inventor application can expect a 17% increase in performance. Adobe After Effects and Lightroom Classics are also significantly faster and more responsive.

RN: What safeguards does Intel have in place in lieu of the recent chip shortages globally? Would they affect this rollout?

ND: We have active campaigns in place to minimize the impact of the global chip shortage, including the expansion of our advanced chip manufacturing capacity and efforts to increase the availability of third-party materials and components to improve our output. To date, we have invested $20 billion in two factories in Arizona and plan to further expand our presence in the US and in Europe to create a sustainable and secure semiconductor supply chain for the world.