DEEP INSIDE INTEL'S NUC: WE VISITED INTEL'S LAB TO LEARN THE SECRETS OF TINY COMPUTING

INTEL CELEBRATES 10 MILLION NUCS—AND HAS A PLAN FOR THE NEXT 90 MILLION.

- MATT SMITH

There’s a neat symmetry to the 10th anniversary of Intel’s NUC, which was first revealed to the world in 2012. In ten years the NUC group (which stands for Next Unit of Computing) has sold over 10 million of its unique miniature PCs.

If that surprises you, brace yourself: Those devices are split across a jaw-dropping 600 configurations. The scope and selection of NUC flies under the radar of even PC enthusiasts, who know NUC best for its eye-catching but relatively modest line of pint-size powerhouses.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Brian McCarson, vice president and general manager of Intel’s NUC group. “We’re just getting warmed up.”

FROM CONCEPT TO REVOLUTION

The NUC began with a simple concept. What if a desktop computer was just…smaller? Like, really small? Small enough to fit in your hand? The fact this idea no longer seems strange is testament to the NUC’s success—but in 2012, it was a bold concept.

PC makers had dabbled in ultra-compact design with netbooks and other, more unusual portable machines, like Sony’s Vaio P-Series subnotebooks (fave.co/3wrxDRD). Yet it wasn’t clear how this could apply to the desktop.

The limitation wasn’t processors, which packed ever-more power into decreasing thermal envelopes, but design. The desktop segment remained focused on boxes built around ATX motherboards and socketed CPUs. Laptops, netbooks, and subnotebooks proved it was possible to deliver useful performance in a much smaller form factor, and a team of engineers began investigating how mobile hardware could be applied to a desktop design.