Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan restructures leadership team, names new AI chief

Intel’s new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan is restructuring the company’s leadership team, with key semiconductor groups reporting directly to him, according to a report by Reuters based on a memo from Tan.

The semiconductor giant has also appointed Sachin Katti, Intel’s networking chip chief, as the chief technology officer (CTO) and AI head, the report said.

Tan’s email says Katti “is expanding his responsibilities to include the role of chief technology and AI officer for the company. As part of this, he will lead our overall AI strategy and AI product roadmap, as well as Intel Labs and our relationships with the startup and developer ecosystems.”

Katti was handling Intel’s networking and edge computing business unit. Now, as CTO of Intel he will be responsible for all the fundamental and applied research at the tech giant.

Katti, who is also a professor at Stanford University, will succeed Greg Lavender, who is retiring from Intel, the Reuters report said.  

Tan, a chip industry veteran, became CEO in March amid one of the most challenging phases in the history of the chipmaker. Not only has Intel lost its lead in process manufacturing to Taiwan’s TSMC, it has also failed to catch up in the booming AI sector, where Nvidia has left the competition behind.

Tan reportedly wants to keep Intel’s manufacturing business running and is looking to boost Intel’s struggling AI chip efforts to catch up to Nvidia (NVDA). In a letter to employees on March 12, he wrote: “Together, we will work hard to restore Intel’s position as a world-class products company, establish ourselves as a world-class foundry and delight our customers like never before.”

Three Intel board members will not stand for reelection at its annual meeting this year, the company said in a regulatory filing last month.