The global semiconductor shortage, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, set off a cascading set of challenges. The resulting disruption made it harder than ever to get electronic components and products to where they were needed, leaving consumers, businesses and other organizations in the lurch. Compounding the issue: heavy reliance on semiconductor production in Asia, mainly Taiwan. As uncertainty continues to define the 2020s and geopolitical tensions rise, how can we apply what we’ve learned to prevent another crisis? In this episode of The Catalyst by Softchoice, host Cheryl Stookes joins Phil Vokins, Director of Channels, ISVs and Cloud at Intel. Drawing on his deep experience in the semiconductor industry, Vokins dives deep into the coordinated efforts, strategic investments and sustainable approaches by business and government to address the recent shortage and gird against future disruptions.
Featuring: Phil Vokins, Director of Channels, ISVs and Cloud at Intel
The Catalyst is the podcast shining a light on the human side of technology.
This episode was brought to you by the Intel vPro platform, delivering unmatched performance and comprehensive security right to your fingertips. See how Softchoice can help you unlock the full potential of your hybrid workspace with Intel vPro today.
The global semiconductor shortage, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, set off a cascading set of challenges. The resulting disruption made it harder than ever to get electronic components and products to where they were needed, leaving consumers, businesses and other organizations in the lurch. Compounding the issue: heavy reliance on semiconductor production in Asia, mainly Taiwan. As uncertainty continues to define the 2020s and geopolitical tensions rise, how can we apply what we’ve learned to prevent another crisis? In this episode of The Catalyst by Softchoice, host Cheryl Stookes joins Phil Vokins, Director of Channels, ISVs and Cloud at Intel. Drawing on his deep experience in the semiconductor industry, Vokins dives deep into the coordinated efforts, strategic investments and sustainable approaches by business and government to address the recent shortage and gird against future disruptions.
Featuring: Phil Vokins, Director of Channels, ISVs and Cloud at Intel
The Catalyst is the podcast shining a light on the human side of technology.
This episode was brought to you by the Intel vPro platform, delivering unmatched performance and comprehensive security right to your fingertips. See how Softchoice can help you unlock the full potential of your hybrid workspace with Intel vPro today.
[00:00:00] Cheryl: This episode is brought to you by the Intel vPro platform delivering unmatched performance and comprehensive security right to your fingertips. See how Softchoice can help you unlock the full potential of your hybrid workspace with Intel vPro today. Welcome back to another episode of The Catalyst by Softchoice, the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of people and technology.
[00:00:25] Cheryl: I'm your host, Cheryl Stookes. Last year I underwent a kitchen renovation at home knowing that appliances were affected by the global supply chain shortages, we decided to order them nine months ahead of the start of the construction to ensure we'd have them in time. Even if it meant that they'd be sitting in our garage for a few months, surely that would be enough time, right?
[00:00:47] Cheryl: Wrong. We ended up waiting even longer than that for both the fridge and the range, which meant for some creative cooking methods that took place and us pivoting our holiday hosting plans. In the grand scheme of things, this was a minor inconvenience for our family, but the semiconductor shortage created a serious and far reaching crisis for millions of people affecting nearly every industry.
[00:01:11] Cheryl: It led to disrupted supply chains, product shortages, delayed shipments, and vast economic repercussions felt all around the world. What made this shortage even more alarming was what caused it, the overwhelming dependence on the Asia Pacific region, particularly Taiwan, which still accounts for the vast majority of the world's semiconductor production.
[00:01:33] Cheryl: So here's what I wanna know. What lessons have we learned and how can we prevent a similar crisis from happening again? Today on the show, I'll be speaking to Phil Volkins, Intel's Director of Channels ISVs and Cloud. He brings extensive experience in the semiconductor industry and firsthand knowledge of the coordinated efforts to address the shortage I first met.
[00:01:55] Cheryl: Phil on main stage during Softchoice’s annual kickoff event in January, and I just knew that we had to have him on the show to share his insights. Welcome to the show, Phil.
[00:02:04] Phil: Yeah, indeed. A compliment. I'm very happy to be here.
[00:02:07] Cheryl: Well, why don't we jump right in. There's, gosh, there's so much to talk about right now with Intel, and I think there's a couple of threads that I, I would really like to touch on today.
[00:02:16] Cheryl: The first being, Supply chain, um, you know, the, the elephant in the room, the supply chain challenges that, that we've seen all across the world over the last couple of years, but certainly amplified through the pandemic. And Phil, I know that a lot of us intuitively understand that Asia Pacific dominates semiconductor production, but for our listeners, could you quantify just how big that dominance is with real numbers? And how did we end up this way?
[00:02:45] Phil: A big question. Uh, let me see if I can, uh, unpick that and take it in a logical order for you. So it's interesting, isn't it? Because before the pandemic, nobody ever spoke about supply chain and logistics, and then suddenly when we can't. Get stuff that we need either for our businesses or our homes.
[00:03:03] Phil: It's all over the news and we're all kind of forced to become, uh, experts in it as the global supply chain locked down because of Covid. But I'd like to think as an optimist that good comes from bad and learning comes from experiences such as we had and what we learned from that was a couple of things really.
[00:03:23] Phil: The world runs on semiconductors and on silicon from our businesses, through our phones, our computers, but also within our house, our cars, our home appliances. And probably, you know, someone is sitting in a room somewhere with a thermostat, which has a $5 piece of silicon in it, and we cannot, um, survive very well without that.
[00:03:42] Phil: And say when the supply chain. Breaks down and we realize we can't get things; it throws it all into focus. So with that in mind, there is approximately 12% of the world's semiconductors are produced here in North America, so the US and Canada, with the vast majority coming out of the Asia Pacific region.
[00:04:02] Phil: As you point out, um, Of the rest of that majority, it's approximately 75% coming from an Asia Pacific as opposed to rest of world, and a large amount of that coming from Taiwan. The region developed core strengths in it in the 1990s. To your point on. You know how we got here and I think there's some admission that North America abdicated its position.
[00:04:27] Phil: They thought it was a commodity sector, uh, that other people could do it cheaper. And so we focused on other things in our economies and say, since the pandemic, we've realized that probably wasn't the best direction to go in and are correcting that.
[00:04:39] Cheryl: It's interesting and I think I just had a flashback when you and I got together in January and I was finishing up a kitchen renovation and I think I might have personally blamed you for the delay in my fridge being delivered, so I apologize for that.
[00:04:55] Cheryl: But no, to the point though. Just, just kidding around. But you know, it really was a long delay for, for, for basic things and you know, we even changed the model that we selected a few times really just to get something. So it's really. Quite fascinating that we just saw it in all industries. Have you seen things start to settle down now from a supply chain perspective and take us back from where things really sort of, I felt like hit the rails during COVID? Where are we now relative to then?
[00:05:20] Phil: I think yes and no. I think certainly things have settled down. You know, supply chains are back to normal. Um, ports and docks around the world are operating as they once were. So product is moving around the world. So that's the yes part, and the no part is that it highlighted an imbalance in, uh, global production capability for silicon and semiconductors.
[00:05:46] Phil: So what we've seen is a future where, if. Something like Covid were to happen again or indeed any event which might disrupt the global supply chain. And certainly we see geopolitical tensions rising around the world right now. Obviously a tragic war in Eastern Europe and you can possibly add, you know, an international banking crisis or worries about such a crisis to that list that we realized with our reliance on semiconductors and silicon, that this was really not a very good strategic position for us to be in, and we need to address that in balance. So certainly there are moves around the world now, but particularly in the United States and North America, to shift some of that manufacturing balance back to, you know, this side of the Atlantic and this side of the world.
[00:06:33] Cheryl: Uh, I'd like to dig into that. Can you give us an overview of the specific initiatives that have been launched to address that imbalance? Uh,
[00:06:41] Phil: Yes, I can. And, and there's really quite a lot going on. So at the governmental level, you have the CHIPS Act, which is more correctly referred to as the Chips in Science Act, which is essentially a US government response to the problem that we were talking about.
[00:06:57] Phil: And it designed to give the US and hopefully by extension North America as a continent, um, it regains. Of its leadership in, uh, semiconductor. It's not just manufacturing. I think manufacturing is the most visible part of it, and I'll come onto that in just a second. But it really covers research development, manufacturing, workforce developments and educational initiatives.
[00:07:26] Phil: It's designed to provide, you know, large. Scale, government support for these initiatives, tax credits for, uh, manufacturing of expenses and so on. So I think the government, certainly in the United States has really done quite a lot. And I think that act came into effect in 2022. So it's part of the, the Biden Harrison administration and then at the Intel level, you know, how's that translating into addressing the issue?
[00:07:55] Phil: So a couple of things to say they’re really. Ostensibly, we are investing 40 billion in two new factories in Lincoln County, Ohio. Uh, there's more to it than that. There's also investment in factories in Europe and heavy investment in, uh, additional investment in existing sites such as Arizona. But on these two new factories, kind of really gets quite interesting because Intel has grown through the decades on a philosophy called IDM, integrated device and manufacturing, which essentially means that.
[00:08:27] Phil: From, uh, design and IP right through to production. We own that process and we don't outsource any part of it. And nor does anyone else generally outsource their technology production to us in the new world, we are entering a foundry model where these new factories will not only produce the silicon and CPUs that.
[00:08:48] Phil: Uh, we've grateful that customers have relied on for some time, but we will also manufacture other people's designs and other people's silicon. Those are fabulous companies who can take advantage of our world-class packaging technology, a broad IP portfolio and so on. So it's becomes a much more interesting world, almost an ecosystem of technology, production and development.
[00:09:14] Phil: So I think we should be really quite optimistic about the future there. And incidentally, by the way, we are calling this new direction IDM 2.0, so integrated device and manufacturing 2.0. It's the strategy by which we are living now and which our CEO Pat Gelsinger has set out for us.
[00:09:30] Cheryl: Okay, so this has been encouraging to hear.What I'd really like to know, Phil, is how optimistic should we be or said differently, will these initiatives really make a difference? Imagine, heaven forbid there's another pandemic. In a few years, would we be in a better position with our supply chain?
[00:09:47] Phil: I'm inherently an optimist. Um, but I really think, you know, even without that lens, we should be more optimistic about the future. We can see and we have evidence of intel and indeed others really growing this silicon industry from development research through manufacture here in North America and in Europe. So yes, the evidence is there. It isn't torque. Work has started. Uh, I would accept that it's going to take a couple of years for those factories to come online.
[00:10:18] Phil: I think 2025, uh, would be reasonable estimates for production really to be ramping up there and to see stuff coming out the factories. So we have a short term gap, uh, which we all, uh, in the industry are work in Intel, particularly working very, very hard to address. But you know, to your question, you said if something happens in a few years, then yeah, I think we should be really optimistic about the future because the production will be up and running and it will be multifaceted.
[00:10:46] Phil: As I was just explaining, these are essentially not just making Intel CPUs, these factories, these are world-class silicon production facilities, which can make the, the processes and semiconductor engineering, which the world relies on well beyond the CPU.
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[00:11:55] Cheryl: Intel vPro also provides best in class below the OS security. With Intel Hardware Shield and Advanced Threat Detection, your employees will love their PCs and will be more productive too. But to truly activate all the power of Intel vPro, a partner can help. And that's where Softchoice comes in. As a certified advanced intel partner, Softchoice can help you activate vPro and unlock the full potential of your hybrid workplace.
[00:12:22] Cheryl: Together we can help you make smarter decisions about your technology, so don't let another second pass without maximizing the potential of your vPro capable devices. Contact Softchoice today or go to softchoice.com to learn more. Together we can build a better, more productive hybrid workplace. So Phil, how much have some of the geopolitical economic tensions that we've really seen heat up over the last couple of years underscore the need to bring back high tech supply back into North America and Europe?
[00:12:58] Phil: Great question, and I think it's as simple as this, that if. Any events were to disrupt the global supply chain in ways that we've seen or were to disrupt it for longer periods than we've seen, such as might be caused by a geopolitical issue. This puts us in a really weak position for keeping goods and services flowing in the Western world, so North America and Europe, uh, shall we say, for this, for this discussion.
[00:13:25] Phil: So yeah, we had. We have to do something. I'm happy to say that the United States and Intel is at the forefront of that motion. So the CHIPS Act is a contributing factor. It's touted as relocating a lot of the r and d and manufacturing capability to North America. Which in fact it does, but it's also much broader than that.
[00:13:46] Phil: It also helps the US develop wireless tech for open radio networks. It has a huge STEM component to it, and this is very important to us at Intel. I know it's really important to you at Soft Choice as well, Cheryl. Um, in terms of making sure that our. Young people through from K to 12 all the way through to post-grad are
getting the right type of impetus and resources behind their STEM education.
[00:14:12] Phil: So it's really about building longer term strategic capability. So it's the CHIPS Act is part of it. Um, I would add there is more to it and there is also more to the CHIPS Act than just, uh, rebalancing supply.
[00:14:25] Cheryl: I'm really curious as to your thoughts, and I've been thinking a lot about this lately because I cannot go 10 minutes before reading something, hearing something new around generative AI.
[00:14:38] Cheryl: How do you anticipate that these large generative AI, large language models, are gonna affect just the sheer amount of compute power that we're gonna require?
[00:14:48] Phil: That's a great question. Generative ai. Well, AI in general and in particular, generative AI are. Highly compute intensive. Yeah. Um, and it really makes us think there's a few things happening here, Cheryl.
[00:15:01] Phil: Obviously there's the, the compute intensivity in the public cloud, which has grown with lots of capability over the recent years and certainly a lot of the generative AI is happening there. There is your standard business on premise compute capability for those organizations large enough to require it, who believe they will have generative models.
[00:15:21] Phil: I think that's kind of a big opportunity. And I think another thing that. AI is coming to the pc, uh, and we've seen this really reached an inflection point. AI is not new, it's been around for 40 years and what happened for the first 30? Nothing. And suddenly we've seen, you know, hot topics like machine learning, chat GPT, generative, generative ai, um, really growing in the day centre.
[00:15:44] Phil: And this year is the year that we believe. With some of our new processes coming out, that AI inflection point also reaches the pc. Let me give you an example of that. Um, I'm sure lots of our listeners, if not all, have been spending time on video calls and possibly lots of times on video calls. So one of the capabilities which is coming out in the, uh, intel processes, in fact this year, will be gaze correction because as we know, sometimes we're looking at a screen or looking down slightly instead of looking at the camera.
[00:16:16] Phil: So how does that, um, impact, say a remote working environment where you actually want to build intimacy? We now have, uh, gaze correction capability being built into our PC CPUs say this year. In fact, this is not a, a far in the future thing, which will give the recipients of the video feed the impression.
[00:16:36] Phil: The, the person they're talking to is looking at the camera with through GA's correction, even if they're actually looking down at the screen and talking about something else.
[00:16:44] Cheryl: That's really interesting. I also think about that from the context of, um, I'm someone that does a lot of keynotes and does a lot of virtual keynotes, and it can be tricky, right?
[00:16:52] Cheryl: It can be really tricky, particularly in a live setting. You might be using a teleprompter or something that's close to the camera on a video. You can always tell when you're looking at the notes. That can be tricky. Right. So that'll be an interesting, just from an effectiveness perspective of the virtual presentations and keynotes and things of that nature.
[00:17:08] Phil: Yeah, exactly. You can, you can always tell when someone's looking at the notes and you can always tell when someone's reading the notes cuz you can kind of follow the gaze across the screen. Um, but yeah, this type of, uh, capability is meant to help us all address that.
[00:17:22] Cheryl: It's exciting. Well, thank you for going on that journey with me that, uh, was a little bit off script, but, uh, I would love to pivot.
[00:17:29] Cheryl: A little bit back to manufacturing and you, we talked a little bit about the need to rebalance manufacturing, repatriating some manufacturing capability into North America. But the other thing I really wanna touch on is sustainability. It's a hot topic for a lot of our listeners, and I know that Intel is doing a lot of really good work in this space.
[00:17:49] Cheryl: I would love to learn more about what it is that you're doing and how you're evolving your manufacturing processes to be more sustainable.
[00:17:55] Phil: Good question. And you know, we, we don't always do a very good job of explaining, commonly said technical terms and things like sustainability and what it means. I think lots of organizations talk about sustainability, but then, you know, unpicking that to what it actually means is, uh, It's something I'd say I don't think everybody does a, a good job of.
[00:18:14] Phil: So I'm very happy to try and answer that question. So really useful to talk about what sustainability is in computing and how the industry actually measures it. Cause I don't think that's a particularly well known fact. So if you take a PC for example, The sustainability of that PC can be defined by the carbon emissions generated by it across its lifecycle, including manufacturer and a certain amount, uh, of years of operation, let's say for most businesses, three years of operation.
[00:18:46] Phil: And what we find is that historically, let's take a pc because it, it's more battery reliant than a desktop. Historically, maybe 50% of the carbon emissions. Of the lifecycle would've been generated during manufacture and 50% of the emissions during three years of operation. We have got, as an industry so good, even in the last two, three years at battery optimization, that that relationship is no longer 50-50.
[00:19:13] Phil: It's more like 85 15. So 85. Percent of the carbon emissions being generated during manufacture and 15 per cent during three years of operation. But that's not because we've got worse at manufacture. In fact, we've got a whole lot better at manufacture. I, I can't speak for the entire industry, but I can speak for Intel in that 80 per cent of our electricity is renewable.
[00:19:35] Phil: We have reached net water positivity in three countries, and we are now in the top two on Barron's most sustainable companies list. So I said it's not because we got worse at manufacturing, we've just got really, really good at designing sustainable products, but it does also need to go further than that.
[00:19:53] Phil: So once that product is in market, we've got to think what happens at the end of its life cycle. And this has become quite a hot topic for organizations too, and I would encourage all businesses to really think about this in terms of refurbishments and giving it secondary life or. Recyclability. There are a ton of precious materials used in RPCs gold, silver, copper, let alone all of the battery technology, which can be used around the world.
[00:20:22] Phil: So we as a society also need to think about keeping PCs out of landfill and recycling that technology as much as possible.
[00:20:31] Cheryl: You know, congratulations to Intel and that's, that's really encouraging that you're leading the way in terms of improvements that you're making and some of those sustainability milestones that you're hitting.
[00:20:40] Cheryl: So very encouraging. I would love to ask you, Phil, if you think about our listeners, you know it, business leaders, technology decision makers, CIOs. I think every single one of us is thinking about how we can be more sustainable in the technologies that we use and, and acquire like laptops. And so do you have any advice for our listeners on what they can do day in and day out to, to be more sustainable?
[00:21:06] Phil: Yes, I do. I think you need to take a longer term strategic view of this. So one of the services which has grown in popularity, you know, through the pandemic, has been device as a service or client as a service. And if you think about it, there's lots of advantages to doing that. It may not be cheaper, but it may be kind of a whole lot better for an organization to do that.
[00:21:28] Phil: So if we have remote workers, Uh, for instance, and I think we all have lots of remote workers right now, particularly knowledge workers, either hybrid or remote, some sort of office base or home base or on continuum. What happens when the PC inevitably goes wrong or something happens to it? Do you want that employee?
[00:21:47] Phil: Then, you know, getting in a car and driving to a corporate office where the IT department may or may not be in order to try and get a fix. I would argue that's not particularly sustainable. Why just outsource the problem to a specialist? I know Softchoice has a fairly well developed service in this area.
[00:22:04] Phil: Let them take ownership of the asset and responsibility for its service and fix. And by the way, they're also very adept at using. Some of the remote management tools out there so that the person, nobody may have to get in a car and drive anywhere. So for instance, we have technologies like Microsoft Intune for fixers above the operating system, and an Intel vPro built into the device for fixers below the operating system.
[00:22:28] Phil: If the machine blue screens, in fact, we can now get to a device and re-image it and manage it completely, even if it's powered off, as long as there's an internet connection available. So that's. Certainly one thing that they can think of, but also I think we're seeing some of our forward thinking customers here in Canada and North America thinking about just broader sustainability issues.
[00:22:50] Phil: So lots of our customers have spoken to us about early attempts at having sustainability councils, so people from the IT. Function and people from the business, for instance, just getting together to talk about what this means and sharing ideas in that respect. Because we can't expect it all to be top down and we can't expect all of our executives and uh, e l t team members to know all of the capability which is out there from it and managing these devices and managing these remote states.
[00:23:18] Phil: So I'd certainly have, uh, recommend. At the organizational level organization say, talking about this, uh, building councils. We don't have to rule everything by committee, but at least to meet on an ongoing basis and educate top to bottom and bottom to top in the organization about measures that we can take because there are plenty.
[00:23:40] Cheryl: I appreciate that perspective. And you know what, we get asked about this quite a bit from our customers and for us it's all about sharing best practices in terms of what we're seeing from customers across multiple industries and also our, our trusted partners like Intel. So I appreciate your perspective on that.
[00:23:56] Cheryl: So Phil, what are you most excited about in terms of Intel's roadmap? What's coming down the pipe? What can you share with us that are gonna get our listeners excited?
[00:24:04] Phil: Take that question on so many levels, Cheryl, I'll try and answer it on, on three brief ones. Uh, we already spoke about what's coming in in client computes.
[00:24:11] Phil: Yep. And AI coming into the pc. And I think that really helps develop intimacy or helps us emulate intimacy in a, in, in a more hybrid world at the, at the kind of data centre and large compute level. It would have to be ai, I think, you know, machine learning capability, uh, generative techniques, and also the neural networking and that deep net networking technology, which has been pioneered by OpenAI and, uh, some of those kind of well-publicized initiatives.
[00:24:39] Phil: I think this is a great opportunity for humanity to really free itself from mundane tasks and to focus on creativity and then really something that we haven't spoken much about, but in some sections we are, is. This whole idea of compute at the edge, 90 per cent of data may be created at the edge by the year 2030.
[00:25:01] Phil: You know, what are we doing about that? And clearly you can't bring it all back across a network because of latency and cost issues. So it does also create a kind of a very large edge compute opportunity, and I think we are probably going to be hearing a lot more about that over the next two, three years as companies realize that opportunity and just how much data they have and what they need to get out of it. So I, I think the future is bright and I think the future is busy.
[00:25:27] Cheryl: It sounds like we are all going to be busy in the technology industry for quite some time, which is, uh, one of the reasons why I love this interview as much as I do. Phil, you touched on it a little bit when we talked about the CHIPS act and you talked about STEM education. How important do you see that being for all of us as we move forward?
[00:25:47] Phil: We know that it's going to be a vital skill in the future. It's, it's almost inconceivable in any industry that if you lack technical skills, you'll be able to be a major contributor. We can see job markets changing. I would love to see a world where there is more equity.
[00:26:04] Phil: I'd love to see a world where our children from all backgrounds are given opportunities to learn and play with technology. I'd love to talk about making sure that we get our education much more focused in schools from early coding initiatives using stuff like Scratch for instance, but at end up through higher education.
[00:26:22] Phil: And I would love to see the ethical conversation built into that by way of an example if, if somebody designs something in a school somewhere, which is. Great and removes the task we should ask that person, ask that child, uh, okay, great idea. What happens if that removes somebody's job? How do we cope with that?
[00:26:40] Phil: And there is no right or wrong answer to that, but I think getting our young people thinking about the implications of the technology that we develop and that we use is a smart bet for say, us as a human race in the future. And I'd love to see that continue. And obviously Soft Choice has good work in that are continue as well.
[00:26:59] Cheryl: So thank you for what you do there. Oh, thank you. And I agree with you. I mean, this is just such a core element to all of the jobs in the future and ensuring that, uh, we continue to make it as inclusive as possible and widen the talent pool as much as we possibly can. Phil, I want to wrap up this conversation today the same way that I started it.
[00:27:17] Cheryl: Thank you so much for being a guest on the Catalyst. As I mentioned, you were the first invitation that we had for season five, and we're so thrilled that you could join us this afternoon.
[00:27:26] Phil: It's been a great honour as always. Uh, Cheryl working with Soft Choice and thank you for the opportunity.
[00:27:33] Cheryl: The semiconductor shortage wreaked havoc on our global economy, but there is hope that we can avoid similar challenges in the future as coordinated efforts tackle this issue head on.
[00:27:43] Cheryl: Through ambitious initiatives and investments, governments and industry leaders are working to enhance supply chain resilience. And reduced dependencies on a single region, ensuring a more stable future for semiconductor production. And the best part, these efforts are being undertaken in a way that recognizes the importance of sustainability.
[00:28:03] Cheryl: Companies like Intel are actively striving to reduce their carbon footprint while fostering a more inclusive and equitable technological landscape. And what's not to love about that. That does it for this week. We'll be back in two weeks’ time with a new episode of The Catalyst by Softchoice. I'm your host, Cheryl Stookes.
[00:28:26] Cheryl: This episode was brought to you by the Intel vPro platform delivering unmatched performance and comprehensive security right to your fingertips. See how Softchoice can help unlock the full potential of your hybrid workspace with Intel vPro today.