In 2019, Intel acquired Habana Labs, an Israeli computer chip designer that produced the Gaudi line.
Habana Labs named their AI accelerator “Gaudi” as a tribute to Antoni Gaudí, a Catalan architect from Spain known for his distinctive and innovative architectural style.
Gaudí’s work often involved complex organic shapes and structures, which reflected a deep understanding of natural forms and processes. Habana Labs likely chose the name “Gaudi” to evoke ideas of innovation, complexity, and organic intelligence in the realm of artificial intelligence and neural network processing.
Intel recently announced the availability of Gaudi 3, its third generation Gaudi AI chip, that pushes both the performance and cost angles. Intel asserts that Gaudi 3 beats Nvidia’s H100 GPU by 50% on average and with 40% power efficiency. Intel plans to price Gaudi 3 at a fraction of the cost of Nvidia’s GPU. Nvidia dominates the market with a massive 80% share currently.
Let’s talk about Gaudi domains, shall we?
First of all, the domain Gaudi.com. Registered in 1997, it’s in the possession of a Japan-based marketing company, operating from Japon.net. The domain Gaudi.com appears to have some issues resolving on a proper landing page but as far as we know, it has never been offered for sale or parked for PPC purposes. Gaudi.com would be the ultimate domain for Intel to own, much like Intel’s Pentium.com.
Then there’s Gaudi3.com. This domain was registered in late 2023, presumably at a time predating Intel’s public announcement of the Gaudi 3 availability. It’s clearly a speculative registration and it’s been offered for sale with a $9,000 dollar price tag.
Lastly, the domain Gaudí.com is a IDN domain that is available to acquire via Dan.com for the sum of $2,500 dollars. While not directly matching the Intel brand, it’s the Catalan artist’s last name.
So should investors register Gaudi domain names, knowing all this?
Keep in mind that Havana Labs and therefore its owner, Intel, has registered the GAUDI mark since 2019.
The GAUDI mark has been registered in two classes with the USPTO, for the following products/services:
- Computer hardware; integrated circuits; semiconductors; computer chipsets; micro-processors; computer software for operation of integrated circuits, semiconductors, computer chipsets and micro-processors; instructional manuals provided with the aforementioned goods; Downloadable electronic publications in the nature of books, magazines, newsletters and manuals in the field of computer hardware, integrated circuits, semiconductors, computer chipsets and microprocessors; artificial intelligence computers; artificial intelligence supercomputers; computer hardware for machine learning, deep learning, natural language generation, statistical learning, supervised learning, un-supervised learning, data mining, predictive analytics and business intelligence
- Cloud computing featuring software used to host, manage, develop and maintain applications, software and websites for managing and implementing virtual desktop infrastructures, for virtual desktops and applications, for virtualization technology software, and remote management and delivery services of real-time data to computers, handheld computers, and mobile electronic devices; cloud computing featuring software for processing text, images, digital media, multimedia and data files; Software as a service (SaaS) featuring software for providing a customer service software platform to enable interaction between customers and service representatives to resolve product issues; technical support services, namely, troubleshooting in the nature of diagnosing computer software problems; software as a service (SaaS) featuring computer software platforms for artificial intelligence; platform as a service (PaaS) featuring knowledge-based artificial intelligence computer software platforms, data analytics software platforms, and automation software platforms for use in artificial intelligence applications
A fine example of blatant brand infringement and cybersquatting is the domain name IntelGaudi.com. Its registrant appears to be Chinese and in the past they sought $2,588 dollars for the domain.
In summary: While Gaudi domain names can be registered, they’d better be used to provide insight on the Catalan artist’s legacy and not on Intel’s Gaudi brand.
