Pat’s Plan Proceeds, With Some New Twists

While Pat Gelsinger was Intel CEO the company announced a huge change in focus for the company.  His vision of Intel was of a company far more focused on fabrication, but it didn’t focus on fabbing custom chips for customers.  That had always been ARM’s focus, but at Intel you took what they made internally and dealt with it, customization was not something Intel would even consider.  Lip-Bu Tan plans to change this policy and under his leadership Intel will start listening to customers requests and will start designing and fabbing custom parts.

The most obvious products Intel will focus on are AI accelerators, in an attempt to win back some market share from NVIDIA.  The lack of progress towards that goal was definitely a factor in Gelsinger’s ousting from the CEO position, though it is unclear how he might have managed to succeed at that goal in the three years he was given.  Lip-Bu Tan plans to continue working towards this goal, and has warned stockholders that there is no way this can be an overnight fix.  Given enough time, Intel should be able to pivot to a fab company which offers customized products for it’s customers, unfortunately NVIDIA is not going to wait for them and will continue improving their products.

New and improved AI chips are not what enthusiasts want from either company, however we represent an ever shrinking piece of the pie for now.  If the AI boom goes bust, as most bubbles do, we will still be here waiting for the latest and greatest silicon.