Intel axes UK lab, closing bridgehead to Europe

Intel is closing its research centre at Cambridge University’s Computing Department as part of a restructuring to cut 10,500 staff and save the company $2 billion in 2007 and $3 billion in 2008.

The lab, which opened in March 2003, is one of four that Intel funds, and the only one outside the US. An Intel spokesman said the transition plan is in place and the site will close next month. He would not comment on how much money will be saved.

Neither the Intel spokesman, nor the university would say how many staff are employed at the centre, but the web site lists ten Intel researchers, along with 13 university faculty members, 12 graduate students, five interns and four administrators. In its three-and-a-half years in operation the centre has accumulated 70 alumni.

European collaboration

Intel has said previously that having a research lab in Europe was essential to strengthen ties with academic groups and make it easier to collaborate in research projects funded by the European Union.

Frank Binns, Associate Director of the Centre, and an Intel employee for 20 years, said the great strength of the centre is that it is closely coupled to relevant academic groups across Europe and enables the company to anticipate and manage disruptive technologies that are brewing across the continent. “While we are quite small and academic research is very broad [these links] enable us to see a broad spectrum and pick out things that can be disruptive.”

The prime example is Xen, an architecture that allows multiple operating systems to run on the same computer by splitting it into partitions that operate independently of each other. While there are other such virtualisation products, they are all in the software. On the basis of the Xen project, Intel made virtualisation more efficient by incorporating it into hardware, in its Intel Virtualization Technology.

Processors enhanced with the technology can run multiple operating systems, including unmodified legacy operating systems, in independent, isolated partitions.

‘Disruptive’ technology

“Xen was very disruptive to Intel’s business, but if Intel had not been involved the impact would have been even more substantial,” said Binns. “The concept of virtualisation caused many changes in Intel architecture.”

Xen was subsequently spun out into a company XenSource, founded by Ian Pratt, the Cambridge University researcher who started the project in 2001. Since then Xen has been adopted as the standard for virtualisation by the Linux open source software movement, and has been endorsed by companies including HP, IBM and Novell. Intel has contributed the code for its Virtualization Technology to Xen.

In July this year, XenSource, based in Palo Alto, California, did a deal to provide Xen-enabled-Linux for Longhorn, the upcoming version of the Windows operating system. This will enable Windows and Linux to run concurrently on Windows servers.

The next disruptive technology that the Intel Research Centre is currently seeking to tame is photonics. “Three years ago optical research was the preserve of telecoms companies interested in deploying it over large distances,” said Binns. “Now the cost of components is coming down, and we are taking the techniques and technology used in long haul and making them suitable for short connections between computers.” Binns said it would be three to five years before any marketed products emerged.

The centre is also collaborating with the Centre for Photonic Systems at the Cambridge University to investigate the possibility of using optical interconnects to replace copper on microprocessors. The project has succeeded in moving data at 100 gigabits per second over an optical interconnect, a rate that exceeds the capacity of copper.

The Intel Centre showcased around 20 projects at its open day in June this year. Binns said it was likely that most would survive in some form. “Either people will continue to work for Intel [in another location] on the same projects, or they will take them elsewhere in the research community.”

He added that while there might not be a centre with a sign over the door, “The collaboration with Cambridge University won’t go away; the relationship will continue.”