Intel Looking to Buy Out Mellanox to Challenge Huawei in the 5G Infrastructure Gold Rush

[btarunr]

Intel is in the fray to acquire Israeli networking infrastructure manufacturer Mellanox Technology for $6 billion in cash and shares, which constitute a 35 percent premium over its most recent valuation. Mellanox designs and manufactures infrastructure-scale networking hardware, such as high-bandwidth switches, adapters, and other data-center networking hardware, and when acquired by Intel, could give the company sufficient IP and manpower to take on Chinese networking equipment giant Huawei, in the gold-rush to bring 5G to the world, in addition to sustaining the cloud-computing boom. Huawei has been banned in several western nations (particularly NATO member states) for political or strategic reasons, and a large vacuum has been built that's being approached by other "Kosher" players such as Mellanox, Cisco, etc.



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[hat]

Hrm... I thought Intel already had (or was working on) their own 5G device? Still, as far as I know, the player to beat is Qualcomm... they hold the patents for the best current radio tech. I've never even heard of Mellanox before.

 

[Flyordie]

As long as TDS/US Cellular is kept out of the 5G market.. I'll be happy.

 

[john_]

Everyone is fearing Huawei. The US government is trying to crush it, because Apple is not selling as much iPhones as it would like to, now Intel is focusing on 5G, so that US companies wouldn't stay behind in that area. Except if this is just a different political decision that needs US to invest billions of dollars in Israel. Combined with the 11 billions fab in Israel, we are talking about huge investments from a US company in that country.

 

[Argyr]

https://www.jrseco.com/european-uni...rn-of-potential-serious-health-effects-of-5g/

In an appeal to the European Union, more than 180 scientists and doctors from 36 countries warn about the danger of 5G, which will lead to a massive increase in involuntary exposure to electromagnetic radiation. The scientists urge the EU to follow Resolution 1815 of the Council of Europe, asking for an independent task force to reassess the health effects.

4G sounds good to me

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

how sure are those scientists that the effects of 5G is deadly enough when we haven't see any deployments on the field but only close door testings in a small box done by those scientists? Also, we're already being involuntarily exposed to the many types of EM radiations...

 

[BakerMan1971]

Everyone is fearing Huawei. The US government is trying to crush it, because Apple is not selling as much iPhones as it would like to, now Intel is focusing on 5G, so that US companies wouldn't stay behind in that area. Except if this is just a different political decision that needs US to invest billions of dollars in Israel. Combined with the 11 billions fab in Israel, we are talking about huge investments from a US company in that country.

This

It won't be difficult to take on Huawei with the governments helping, crazy arrests etc smack of lobbying by big tech companies afraid of the competition.

 

[lexluthermiester]

In an appeal to the European Union, more than 180 scientists and doctors from 36 countries warn about the danger of 5G, which will lead to a massive increase in involuntary exposure to electromagnetic radiation. The scientists urge the EU to follow Resolution 1815 of the Council of Europe, asking for an independent task force to reassess the health effects.

There has already been testing done in the US by the FCC and a few independent labs indicating that 5G device radios and broadcast towers do not present any significant risk to users. Try to remember that the frequencies used by these devices are in a non-harmful range and have very low transmission wattage power. There is simply not enough EMR energy to do any real harm, even over long exposure periods. It's always better to be safe than sorry, but these kinds of worries are more alarmist than anything else..

 

[john_]

how sure are those scientists that the effects of 5G is deadly enough when we haven't see any deployments on the field but only close door testings in a small box done by those scientists? Also, we're already being involuntarily exposed to the many types of EM radiations...

I guess those people know the base of 5G technology and probably know what negative parameters for health would increase, if we fill the air with those signals. To put it differently, we probably knew that radiation kills, before we have the first bombings/radiation accidents. Using the technology and just waiting a few decades for cancers to skyrocket(they already are much higher than 50 years ago), is not the clever thing to do. If 5G is dangerous, it should be banned from the EU. Cancer is becoming a nice tool for companies and hospitals to make money and for goverments to control the population growth on the planet. I know how that last sentence looks like, but don't read it as a conspiracy theory. I didn't wrote it that way. It's just the unfortunately truth that it just happens to work.

There has already been testing done in the US by the FCC and a few independents labs indicating that 5G device radio's and broadcast towers do not present any significant risk to users. Try to remember that the frequencies used by these devices are in a non-harmful range and have very low transmission wattage power. There is simply not enough EMF energy to any real harm, even over long exposure periods. It's always better to be safe than sorry, but these kinds of worries are more alarmist than anything else..

The US government was spraying DDT on people to prove that it was absolutely safe.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

i know this is no conspiracy theory but tech advancement is inevitable.

 

[Mike Chen]

Hmmm...
Mellanox is focused on ultra-low-latency or long range high bandwidth WIRED networking, not wireless networking.
I've use their Infiniband networking (40Gb/s, 56Gb/s, 100Gb/s) for years; it's the de facto networking for supercomputers.
But... Intel already bought Infiniband product lines from Qlogic for several years, which became the base of their Omni-path technology.
Maybe Omni-path lacks the long-range capability that 5G infrastructure requires?

 

[lexluthermiester]

The US government was spraying DDT on people to prove that it was absolutely safe.

Take off the tin hat. That was nearly 50 years ago and involves a completely different type of science for different purposes.

 

[ShurikN]

Hrm... I thought Intel already had (or was working on) their own 5G device?

Their 5G most likely doesn't exist. They've been showing a "prototype" that's just around the corner for years now.
Go to semiaccurate and read up on it.

 

[bajs11]

uh yeah, sounds like a logical move
also FYI its not just the US that has banned Huawei
many other western countries have done the same
https://www.ft.com/content/e90c3800-aad3-11e8-94bd-cba20d67390c
Norway is about to do the same

https://www.jrseco.com/european-uni...rn-of-potential-serious-health-effects-of-5g/

In an appeal to the European Union, more than 180 scientists and doctors from 36 countries warn about the danger of 5G, which will lead to a massive increase in involuntary exposure to electromagnetic radiation. The scientists urge the EU to follow Resolution 1815 of the Council of Europe, asking for an independent task force to reassess the health effects.

4G sounds good to me

didn't they warn about the same or similar health risks when GSM and later on 3G networks were introduced?

 

[john_]

Take off the tin hat. That was nearly 50 years ago and involves a completely different type of science for different purposes.

Take off your blinkers. The same reply could be given from another lexluthermiester in 50 years from now, about another tech, when bringing 5G as an example.

also FYI its not just the US that has banned Huawei
many other western countries have done the same

Yes, because if they don't do so, US will target them as well. On other news, ...free world.

 

[Smartcom5]

Hmmm...
Mellanox is focused on ultra-low-latency or long range high bandwidth WIRED networking, not wireless networking.
I've use their Infiniband networking (40Gb/s, 56Gb/s, 100Gb/s) for years; it's the de facto networking for supercomputers.
But... Intel already bought Infiniband product lines from Qlogic for several years, which became the base of their Omni-path technology.
Maybe Omni-path lacks the long-range capability that 5G infrastructure requires?

Your answer, there you have it.

Groundhog Day again?
For sure Intel already has some IB-networking due to the acquisition of Q-Logic's network business division on Infinity-Band from back in 2012 by Intel.
However, the fact that Intel is about to get their hands on Mellanox shall be due to Huawei's competition? On 5G? Nothing could be further from the truth!

Calling all stations: Red alert
I firmly believe the real reason why Intel wants to swallow Mellanox is their fear in the shape of three capital letters: AMD!
By buying Mellanox – which is virtually the only remaining provider of InfiniBand-hardware and/or network-infrastructure (bar Intel itself here, Omni-Path …) – they're literally completely blocking AMD from gaining any significant market-share. As everyone who wants to use AMD in a HPC needs to rely on Mellanox' InfiniBand network-hardware.

So Intel most likely is fundamentally and straight-up just about to completely seal off and shield AMD from the whole Enterprise-, HPC- and/or Server-market by becoming the only legitimate provider of InfiniBand-hardware. → Without Mellanox' Interconnects like InfiniBand, there's no chance in hell any·one can build up any reliable HPC-hardware provided by and featuring AMD's Epycs here.

Huawei?
Thus, this move from Intel here is literally fully strategic on its core!
They now they're fucked against AMDs Epyc, so they're trying to eventually lock up the server-market as a whole and transform the enterprise- and server-market into their own Intel-only Omni-Path-compatible eco-system here … That move has no·thing to do with Huwaei or China (even if it seems to be en vouge to shit on Huawei and alike theses days …), this is straight up bullshit! The whole thing is prepared to hit AMD here and literally no-one else. Even IBM would hit that hard too with their POWER-mainframes too.

Omnipath™-compatible or: How to invent G-Sync on architecture-level
Just think about it for a moment! No-one will be able to build or offer any serious AMD-based servers without Mellanox InfiniBand. Since Intel is about to (or at least tries to) becoming the only legit provider of InfiniBand-hardware what·so·ever. So the fate of AMD within the server-space would lie within Intel's hands – and they could (and will be for sure!) trying to kill AMDs attemps to gain any market-share within the HPC-space by most likely making Mellanox' IB-hardware disappear after the buy-in. … and Omni-Path is virtually incompatible to AMDs Epyc, no?

5G? Bullshit!
Mellanox doesn't even provide any serious 5G-stuff but Ethernet- and InfiniBand-switches and given host bus-adapters respectively.
This is a truly devasting move if this is going to happen, as Intel literally will be able to transform the whole Server-market into their own OmniPath™-exclusive eco-system – which of course will be 100% incompatible towards anything from AMDs Epyc.

tl;dr: Intel does what it always did, playing dirty by swallowing Mellanox' InfiniBand, making themselves the only provider of InfiniBand-hardware + -infrastructure – and thus, eventually lock up the whole server-space against and from AMD with their highly competitive Epyc-prozessors (as OmniPath will be the only remaining InfiniBand-infrastructure) while converting it into another Intel-only eco-system, just like the mobile-/ portable-space already is with gagged OEMs/ODMs. The red herring calling it a move towards and against Huwaei and 5G is finest BS and another false-flag operation here.


Smartcom

 

[Readlight]

What hardware will be used to deliver 5G in North EU

 

[Mike Chen]

Yeah Intel buying Mellanox is a logical step (for Intel), but it will has far less effect on the "5G business" than on the datacenter / supercomputing business.
And with the death of Xeon Phi, now Intel only has the Xeon Scalables that has Omni-path packaged with CPU (and in a way make it unique).
I'd really love to see Mellanox stay out of Intel's hand; although I doubt AMD will build Infiniband-integrated Epyc or like, especially with the coming of PCIe 4.0.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Take off your blinkers.

What does that mean? Is that a greek phase? Either way, low band EMR is harmless below mutli-megawatt power levels and no phone can even get close. That is science fact.

 

[john_]

What does that mean? Is that a greek phase? Either way, low band EMR is harmless below mutli-megawatt power levels and no phone can even get close. That is science fact.

It is a Greek phrase. But it is also an English phrase with the same meaning.
Blinkers definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

It's also a fact that as science progresses, it could find ways that low band EMR is dangerous, ways that we can't detect today. Let's not forget that cancer is skyrocketing while everything in the world is absolutely safe. Food is safe, electronic equipment is safe, water is safe, wireless signals are safe, well, everything is safe, but cancer is having a party. What? A yes, tin hat.

Spoiler

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's also a fact that as science progresses, it could find ways that low band EMR is dangerous, ways that we can't detect today.

You say that like there are mysteries to be solve with RF EMR. There are not. Radio frequencies used for communication have been tested rigorously and have been found to be harmless below a certain intensity threshold, IE, broadcast power. Did I mention RF is proven harmless?

Let's not forget that cancer is skyrocketing

No it isn't. Cancer rates worldwide have dropped in the last decade. But we're getting off topic here.

The RF ranges 5G tech will operate on are safe. Intel and everyone else need only follow basic safety guidelines and they will have nothing to worry about. Fearmongering about a known safe science is a waste of effort and energy. Do let it go.

 

[john_]

No it isn't. Cancer rates worldwide have dropped in the last decade. But we're getting off topic here.

Cancer incidents are on the rise and are expected to increse by over 60% in the next 10-20 years. Deaths from cancers are decreasing.

 

[sneekypeet]

Not sure how cancer became part of this thread, but move along.

 

[Ubersonic]

Well this sucks, Mellanox are one of the best (if not the best) options for entry level 10Gbit networking (not to mention the OEM for lost of NAS manufacturers like Synology), I can't see things remaining like that for long if Intel are allowed to buy out their competition, hopefully the knock o effects for the consumer won't be too bad.