- Intel shut down On Demand after customers refused to pay for dormant silicon
- Archiving SDSi signals the end of hardware features sold as add-ons
- Cloud buyers denied fees for capacities already fused into processors
Intel has moved to shut down its pay-as-you-go hardware upgrade efforts with little public explanation or formal announcement.
The Software Defined Silicon initiative, later called Intel On Demand, has effectively been abandoned after years of limited visibility and sparse maintenance.
Evidence of this shift emerged through the archiving of the Intel SDSi GitHub repository and the removal of most supporting pages from Intel’s own website.
Software updates are down
Software updates tied to the feature have also stopped appearing, reinforcing the feeling that the program has reached its end.
This marks a clear retreat from the idea that processor capabilities could be unlocked after purchase through additional payments.
Intel On Demand was built around select Xeon processors that were shipped with accelerators and security features disabled by default.
Customers were expected to pay either once or through usage-based terms to enable features such as QuickAssist, Data Streaming Accelerator or In Memory Analytics Accelerator.
According to the company, this offered flexible access to silicon already present on the chip, but in practice adoption remained narrow and inconsistent.
Large cloud operators, which buy processors in massive quantities, showed little interest in paying extra fees to unlock features on hardware they already owned.
Smaller corporate buyers also faced uncertainty about long-term costs and operational complexity.
The decision to move away from Intel On Demand is inevitably reminiscent of the Intel Upgrade Service of the early 2010s, which allowed owners of a low-end Pentium processor to unlock additional cache and Hyper Threading by purchasing an activation code.
Although limited to a single model, the reaction from the trade press and enthusiast community was swift and hostile. The service was widely panned and was quickly discontinued.
Although Intel On Demand operated in a different market and on a much larger scale, both efforts relied on the same basic principle of charging to access dormant silicon capabilities.
The pay-as-you-go model for processor features has repeatedly struggled to gain acceptance, regardless of market segment or branding.
Hardware buyers generally expect physical features to be fully available at the point of sale, with software licenses treated as a separate issue.
By shelving SDSi and allowing related documentation to disappear, Intel appears to accept that this approach did not align with customer expectations.
Via TechPowerUp
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