The semiconductor giant Intel is about to experience a leadership change with its networking chip chief, Sachin Katti, promoted to chief technology officer and artificial intelligence chief. Katti will be succeeding Greg Lavender, who is retiring from the company. This news was broken by the company’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, in a memo reported by Reuters. 

This is the first major leadership change after Lip-Bu Tan was appointed the CEO of the tech giant. In addition to this promotion, Intel’s data centre and AI chip group, along with the personal-computer chip group, will be directly reporting to Tan. These areas were previously overseen by Michelle Johnston Holthaus, who will remain the chief executive of Intel Products, but his work will now expand to new areas. Tan says about this leadership change in the memo

“I want to roll up my sleeves with the engineering and product teams so I can learn what’s needed to strengthen our solutions. As Michelle and I drive this work, we plan to evolve and expand her role with more details to come in the future.”

Intel Competing with Nvidia 

Nvidia has emerged as a strong semiconductor competitor of Intel in the past few years. According to the recently released report by Gartner, the global semiconductor revenue increased by 21% in 2024, with Nvidia ranking no. 1, Samsung Electronics no. 2, and Intel dropping to no.3. This drop indicates Intel’s decreasing performance, or more precisely, Nvidia’s escalating performance. Nvidia’s growing performance is attributed to its growing popularity and investment in AI chips. 

Addressing the demanding need for new strategies in AI chips, Tan 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.”