Intel taps semiconductor veteran Lip-Bu Tan as new CEO
In March, Intel announced its new CEO is Lip-Bu Tan, a semiconductor industry veteran. Tan previously was CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software products used to design and verify complex electronic systems. Cadence’s toolset is used by Intel and all of the other major chip designers.
Customer wins and investments
IBM Cloud speeds AI workloads with Intel Gaudi 3 accelerators
IBM announced in April that it would make Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerators available on IBM Cloud to help customers scale gen AI workloads and optimize performance for AI inferencing and fine-tuning.
Intel will design CPUs with Nvidia NVLink in return for $5 billion investment
Intel is collaborating with Nvidia to design CPUs with Nvidia’s NVLink high-speed chip interconnect, it said in September — just months after committing to co-develop a competing interconnect, UALink, with AMD, Broadcom, and other tech companies. Nvidia will invest $5 billion in Intel stock as part of the agreement.
Intel saga continues: Federal bailout considered
Rumors emerged in August of the federal government’s plans to purchase a 10% stake in Intel in a bid to speed up completion of its advanced fabrication facilities. The deal came together after a meeting between President Donald Trump and CEO Lip-Bu Tan, which took place after President Trump called for the resignation of Tan.
Who wins/loses with the Intel-Nvidia union?
Nvidia dipped into its $56 billion bank account to acquire a 5% stake in Intel for $5 billion, making it the second largest shareholder of Intel stock after the federal government’s recent investment. The deal, announced in September, provides Nvidia greater access to the x86 ecosystem, important for the enterprise data center market, and provides Intel with access to GPUs that have demand and can move their CPU products as well.
Market exits, lost talent
Intel sells off majority stake in its FPGA business
Intel spun off its programmable solutions group as a standalone FPGA company, selling a majority stake in the company to a private equity firm in April. Intel is taking a fairly hefty loss on this deal. It acquired Altera in 2015 for $16.7 billion, but the deal with Silver Lake technology investments values Altera at $8.75 billion total and Intel is getting $4.4 billion for the sale.
