Intel's SIMD autovectorizer against NV's SIMT was like bringing a sword to a machine-gun war. The fact Intel's own ispc beat that too should have shown them there was an entirely different class of weaponry they should've been developing. Not only didn't they respond adequately, they doubled down on xeon phi.. That's future textbook material right there.
Only now, more than a decade later they realize their mistake and try to correct the juggernaut's course. Such glacial mistakes in this industry can cast death blows to even the largest entities.
My pet conspiracy theory is that Intel pushed Xeon Phi so hard in order to sell an expensive but mostly useless HPC system to China. And now they got burnt and are rolling their own tech.
That's my understanding as well. Software-wise, I, for one, have not had issues with reading or writing code with branch delay slots -- automatic nops, at worst. I guess it all depends how early in one's development they were introduce to the concept of delay slots.
It's about time societies started processing their own trash. If the economics of processing some kinds trash does not turn out great then maybe we should stop/minimize generating such trash?
Propeller-based airplanes are not that much faster than this train -- current propeller world record stands at 855 km/h. For higher speeds jet/turbofan engines would be the choice, as they are among the few propulsion forms that can operate very efficiently with the atmospheric medium, rather than fully against it (up to certain speeds). So unless you equip that train with jet turbines (impractical for a number of reasons), you will be paying a huge energy price for airplane speeds at ground altitudes (holds true for any kind of ground transportation). As a result those trains are seldom operated at their peak speeds.
Only now, more than a decade later they realize their mistake and try to correct the juggernaut's course. Such glacial mistakes in this industry can cast death blows to even the largest entities.