New Intel Ceo Plots Overhaul Of Manufacturing And Ai Operations

The new trajectory includes restructuring the companys approach to AI and staff cuts to address what Tan views as a slow-moving and bloated middle management layer. Revamping the companys manufacturing operations, which at one time only made chips for Intel but have been repurposed to make semiconductors for outside clients such as Nvidia, is one of Tans core priorities, these sources said.

At a town hall meeting following his appointment as CEO last week, he told employees that the company will need to make tough decisions, according to two other people briefed on the meeting.

Semiconductor industry expert Dylan Patel said a big problem under former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who left the company in December, was that he was too nice and did not want to fire a bunch of middle management in the way they needed to.

Tan, 65, former CEO of chip design software firm Cadence and a tech investor, was a member of Intels board until he resigned last August. In returning as CEO, Tan is set to take over the American icon after a decade of bad decisions by three CEOs in which it failed to build chips for smartphones and missed surging demand for AI processors, allowing competitors ARM Holdings and Nvidia to dominate those markets.

It will also restart plans to produce chips that power AI servers and look to areas beyond servers in several areas such as software, robotics and AI foundation models.