New Intel software lets users effortlessly share files, screens and common peripherals between Windows PCs for a faster, more fluid workflow.
The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence has significantly increased demand for developers who can create new AI-powered programs and applications. But processing, analysing or training with vast amounts of data can strain even a powerful PC’s bandwidth, making it difficult to multitask with other applications working in the background.
It’s a pain point that can be solved by connecting two computers. Intel’s Thunderbolt Share software lets users connect two Windows PCs to share screens and to control using a single keyboard, mouse and storage.
Using a PC’s existing Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 5 port, a single cable provides secure high-speed, low-latency compute for file-sharing and screen-sharing. One of the PCs or accessories needs to be Thunderbolt Share-licensed.
“AI uses language models, and those models are huge. So maybe you’re working and tweaking a model, but then you need to send it over to another PC to test it. This whole idea of developers and AI and moving mass amounts of data is huge for Thunderbolt Share,” says Lyle Warnke, technical marketing engineer at Intel. “It’s not having to go over my Wi-Fi network, which is slow, or the cloud, which is even slower, or use an external drive, which takes time and is not very efficient. This is private. I’m not going to the cloud, no one will ever see my data because it’s simply going from one PC to the other over a cable.”
Most computers, both Windows and Apple, are equipped with a Thunderbolt port. While it can be used as a USB-C port, which typically has a 10 gigabit per second bandwidth rate to transfer information. The use of a Thunderbolt cable boosts the speed 4x to a 40 gigabit per second bandwidth or 8x to an 80 gigabit per second bandwidth with Thunderbolt 5.
Thunderbolt Share software can be downloaded and installed on Windows PCs with Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 5 ports.