Software was a priority for the previous CEO Pat Gelsinger. He made a string of software acquisitions, including Codeplay and Linutronix.
But the new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has a fresh agenda to cut the fat and put Intel on a path to focus on hardware and manufacturing. The weight of software has taken a backseat since Gelsinger retired.
In August, Lip-Bu — who was previously a board member — had disagreements with Gelsinger’s strategy and its workforce decisions, and he quit his position.
The new CEO has experience with software as the former CEO of Cadence Systems, but a different kind of software — development tools to design chips. He has limited experience in software application development and open source.
Intel Needs a Reset
Intel needs a culture reset, and new CEO Lip-Bu’s focus will be on spinning Intel Foundry into a customer-first organization, said Dylan Patel, an analyst at SemiAnalysis.
“Given that he left the board because of frustration with the slow-moving bureaucracy, he likely will give high priority to speeding up and slimming down the company,” Patel said.
Lip-Bu has technical bona fides, and there will be a significant restructuring of the slow and ineffective middle management at Intel, Patel said.
The manufacturing focus will push software strategies down the totem pole, but it’ll remain important for Intel to sell chips. Lip-Bu is also restructuring the company’s chip roadmap, which will reshape its current software strategy.
Process Design Kit
Instead, Intel’s software priority will be on PDK (process design kit) software for designers to create chips that can be fabricated in the factories.
“Intel Foundry’s survival is key to America’s national and economic security as the only domestic company with advanced logic R&D and manufacturing capability,” Patel said.
Gelsinger’s “software-defined, silicon enhanced” vision outlined in 2022 never took off. His vision was for users to consume software and services in the cloud, powered by Intel silicon that is invisible to the user. Intel’s plan was almost immediately derailed with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which shifted focus to AI software and put Nvidia and its GPUs in the driver’s seat.
The GPU’s rise took the spotlight away from CPUs, which aren’t good at AI. The CPUs were just facilitators for GPU functions, and interest fell in APIs and virtualization layers for applications to work on Intel chips.
Intel laid off scores of software developers in 2023 as part of its restructuring. James Reinders, formerly a software engineer at Intel and a well-known name in the developer circuit, retired last year. Arun Gupta, who leads Intel’s open source software operations, is still there.
The Role of Codeplay
The public face of Intel’s software strategy now goes through the Codeplay Software subsidiary, whose SYCL tool provides the basis for AI software to run across its variety of chips. Codeplay tools include runtimes so standard C++ code can be concurrently executed across CPUs, GPUs, and other processors.
SYCL is the centerpiece for Intel’s parallel programming framework called OneAPI, which competes with Nvidia’s CUDA.
But there are too many broken parts for Lip-Bu to fix before a new and cohesive software strategy emerges.
Intel’s new CEO will take a fresh look at its chip roadmaps, a process initiated by interim CEOs Michelle Johnston Holthaus and Dave Zinsner. The priority now is PC chips, which are mature and doing well.
Intel has reset its server chips, which are struggling to keep up with AMD’s x86 chips and ARM-based processors. Top cloud companies Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have made CPUs based on ARM designs.
Intel’s current AI strategy is in disarray. Intel’s AI chips have failed, and the company has canceled multiple GPUs over the last three years, with the most recent GPU, Falcon Shores, getting the axe. However, Intel is making progress for AI in PCs.
Intel’s AI software strategy goes through open source models. It has adapted Meta’s Llama and, more recently, the DeepSeek model for its Gaudi AI accelerator. Gaudi hasn’t done well, and Intel had to cut its AI revenue projections last year. Intel is also adapting open source models for its PC chips.
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