Earlier this week, Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan gave a keynote speech at the Intel Vision Conference, which was his 14-day term. He mastered the ins ropes at a critical moment in a once-advantage American chipmaker and is now struggling to keep pace with competitors in the face of an AI boom.
Intel still has a commanding share of the CPU market on personal computers, but it lags behind companies like Nvidia and AMD, while GPUs (chips used to train AI models). In recent years, its stocks have also declined sharply. Tan acknowledged the urgency of the situation and opened his keynote speech. “We have a lot of hard work. In some areas, we haven’t [customers’] He told the audience that expectation. I will form a strong team to correct past mistakes. He added that he will prioritize hiring “the best talent in the industry back or rejoin Intel.”
Tan is an experienced industry figure who has served on the board of directors of 14 semiconductor companies. Prior to joining Intel, he served as CEO of software company Cadence and served on Intel’s board of directors from 2022 to 2024. He is also the founder of Walden Catalyst Ventures, an investment company focused on semiconductor space and supports many successful startups.
Tan is a Ph.D. Candidates study nuclear engineering at MIT. Before completing his PhD, he switched courses, pursued an MBA at the University of San Francisco, and started his own career.
Now, his biggest challenge will be to restore Intel’s position in an industry, and Nvidia’s division of NVIDIA has been 24 times bigger. Nvidia also leads each employee’s revenue (a mark of talent and efficiency), while Intel ranks eighth.
But Intel’s core problem may not be innovative, but the difficult part, but deployment. “The tragedy of Intel’s treasures lies in their delayed or deferred deployments. They optimize to minimize quarterly losses. Many innovations have been sitting on the shelves,” wrote former Intel former CEO Raja Koduri in February X.
Although TAN does not directly address deployment speed, an area where it can iterate faster based on customer feedback, he does work to strengthen the company’s foundry business. This refers to Intel’s chip manufacturing capabilities, which can tailor semiconductors to specific customer needs.
“Under my leadership, Intel will be an engineering-focused company,” Tan promised. Criticism highlights of revitalizing Intel’s foundry business, including Apple CEO Tim Cook – is crucial for making customers faster deployment, customization and responsiveness.
To underline his commitment, Tan proposed to take off Intel’s “non-core business”, although he did not specify which businesses, which suggests that the focus is on what must be the company’s advantage.
Intel’s history has helped put “silicon” into Silicon Valley. It was once the backbone of the US technology hardware industry. Although its legacy is safe, it now falls in tan to determine if the story continues.
