Intel released updates to SDSi patches in Linux 5.18. According to Phoronix, the software enables built-in acceleration capabilities of Intel's 4th Generation Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids CPUs will be called Intel On Demand.

The tech, which will have an 'Intel On Demand' sticker,  and allow system administrators to pay extra to enable special-purpose accelerators integrated into Intel's 4th Generation Xeon Scalable 'Sapphire Rapids' processors.

Intel said the new patches will discover which features are physically present on a particular CPU and allow administrators to activate them. They can then decide how often the feature is used.

The Intel On Demand mechanism remains a mystery, but Sapphire Rapids has several acceleration technologies. The list includes Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), Dynamic Load Balancer (DLB), Intel Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA), Intel In-Memory Analytics Accelerator (IAA), and Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) to accelerate specific workloads.

The programme enables access to the interface in the CPU to allow silicon features with an Authentication Key Certificate (AKC) and Capability Activation Payload (CAP) license. It allows us to enable a feature on a particular CPU socket, not across processors in the system or the data centre.

Meanwhile, the fact that the software will need to discover which capabilities are physically supported by a processor and hide those not supported means that some CPU models may not gain support for certain features even by using Intel On Demand software.