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IIT alumni's invisible hand in Intel's latest chip

Ela Dutt
India Abroad Correspondent in New York

When global microprocessor giant Intel released its sophisticated 64-bit computer chip Itanium, few were aware of the high stakes and drama behind the creation of the wonder.

As events unfold now, the protagonist behind the high-tech potboiler is an alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur - Rajiv Gupta.

According to Gupta, Hewlett Packard's 37-year-old whiz kid, he had visions of Itanium nearly a decade ago and his contributions were absolutely critical to the development of the final product.

Intel, however, merely identifies HP as a co-developer of the chip architecture.

The story had all the ingredients of a Steven Spielberg movie -- secret meetings, technical brainstorming, burning of midnight oil in high security laboratories and, finally, the climax where the winner, indeed, takes it all.

However, just what is this Itanium chip that has been making the headlines in several high-tech magazines?

It is a new family of Intel processors co-developed by HP, which is expected to become 'The Platform' for the next generation of 64-bit computing, whether one uses UNIX, Windows, or Linux operating systems.

In February this year, the Aberdeen Group, a technology market consulting and research firm said the Itanium architecture would be the foundation for 42 per cent of all worldwide server revenue by 2005.

Eight years ago, HP concluded that it could not spend more than $1 billion towards development investment that Gupta's chip required.

But when HP decided to partner with Intel, the chip giant apparently demanded total credit for the invention, recalls Gupta, who also has a master's degree in science from the California Institute of Technology.

"Back in 1992, I envisioned Itanium as a processor from HP that would unseat Intel as the company that was most successful in the processor business. At that time the intent was to kill Intel and not partner with it," he told IANS.

"We were looking at that processor coming out in 1994 - code named - PA94 (precision architecture), eight years before it actually came out. This was my intent at least," Gupta said, adding his team also created the software that allowed existing applications to execute on the new architecture faster.

"And then the company made the decision - since it would cost HP more than $1 billion, plus the overall risk and investment profile, we decided instead of trying to do it ourselves, it would be cogent for us to partner with somebody -- Intel -- to be a co-creator."

In late 1993, Gupta and top HP officials had a secret meeting with Intel's tech leader Albert Yu and four other Intel fellows, in the basement of Building 3 at HP's Palo Alto site. "We decided to form two teams to jointly work on it."

Gupta led the HP team, while John Crawford was chief of the Intel team. "Once we decided to get married, one of the prenuptial agreements was that Intel would be recognized as premier, and HP's involvement would be subterranean," he revealed.

And subterranean HP remained until media reports recently showed the key role Gupta and HP played in the development of the Itanium.

"If I wasn't there, it would have been a very different piece than what it is today. If you look at some of the key seminal patents on this, out of the 40 or so patents I have, about 20 to 25 patents are from the Itanium. They are absolutely fundamental to the chip," Gupta claimed.

On Gupta's role in developing the Itanium chip, Bill Kirkos, spokesperson for Intel, said: "Hundreds of engineers from both companies played a critical role, including Rajiv. It is better to ask HP about his individual efforts."

He indicated that while no special recognition was given to anyone, "but both engineering teams were very proud when a "go" decision was made to release the processor in to production."

"Even the brand name is owned by Intel."

For Gupta, however, it was a two-year involvement with Intel's Itanium. Then he chose not to continue with the implementation phase.

"The challenges which were interesting to me, we had addressed," he said adding that in 1995, he decided to move on to other things like e-Speak -- an open-source software.

Hewlett Packard considers this software a precursor to the Web-based service offerings from every major IT company.

But this time around the contribution of Gupta, whom HP considers "the father of Web-based services," has not gone unrecognized.

E-speak has been inducted into the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington.

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