In the past year, Intel has lost its CSO, the CEO of products and the head of AI.
Intel Foundry’s senior vice-president and general manager Kevin O’Buckley is leaving to join Qualcomm, where he will be leading the company’s semiconductor operations.
Naga Chandrasekaran, whose Foundry remit was expanded last September, will now be leading the entire segment, according to a statement from an Intel spokesperson to Tom’s Hardware.
In his new role, effective from 2 March, O’Buckley will be reporting directly to Qualcomm’s executive vice-president, CFO and COOAkash Palkhiwala.
“Kevin brings deep operational expertise, proven commercial leadership, and decades of experience scaling complex semiconductor operations and delivering custom silicon products across data centre and edge devices,” said Palkhiwala.
“His leadership will further strengthen our global operations as we continue to deliver industry-leading products with high-performance, low-power computing, AI and connectivity at scale.”
O’Buckley served at Intel for less than two years, prior to which he was at chipmaker Marvell as its senior vice-president. O’Buckley has also spent more than 17 years working across various roles in IBM.
“We thank Kevin O’Buckley for his contributions to foundry services and wish him the very best as he pursues an opportunity outside the company,” the Intel spokesperson told Tom’s Hardware.
“Intel Foundry remains one of Intel’s highest strategic priorities, and under Naga Chandrasekaran’s leadership the organisation is focused on disciplined execution and delivering for customers.”
Last September, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told Bloomberg that Intel’s production technology isn’t good enough currently for it to be used as a supplier.
Qualcomm develops chips for mobile phones and computers. It is behind the Snapdragon series of processors for mobiles, laptops and extended reality sets.
Lip Bu-Tan has been attempting to flatten Intel’s executive leadership, cut costs and secure new customers ever since he took over as CEO last March. Since then, the company has seen some major leadership exits.
In June, chief strategy officer Safroadu Yeboah-Amankwah left the company, with chief executive of products Michelle Johnston Holthaus exiting the company in September after more than three decades of service.
November saw Intel’s chief technology and AI officer Sachin Katti leaving to join OpenAI to build compute infrastructure for “artificial general intelligence”. Tan has taken over the company’s AI and advanced technologies groups.
The US government currently holds a 10pc stake in Intel, while Nvidia holds $5bn of the company’s stock and SoftBank invested $2bn in the company last year.
Intel has been closely collaborating with SambaNova, an up-and-coming chipmaker chaired by Tan. This week, SambaNova announced a $350m raise, to include a strategic investment from Intel to accelerate work on an Intel-powered AI cloud.
In January, Qualcomm subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies announced a €125m investment to upgrade its Cork city site and create 300 new jobs.
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