After a three-month search, Intel has appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO, tapping a former board member to engineer the chipmaker’s turnaround.
Tan, who was born in Malaysia, will officially take the reins on Tuesday, March 18. “I have tremendous respect and admiration for this iconic company,” he said in Wednesday’s announcement, “and I see significant opportunities to remake our business in ways that serve our customers better and create value for our shareholders.”
Intel watchers will be familiar with Tan’s name. He joined the board in 2022, but abruptly resigned in August after reported conflicts with Intel’s previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger, who stepped down in December. According to Reuters, Tan demanded more cuts to Intel’s “bloated workforce” and bureaucracy, which he argued was holding the US chipmaker back.
Last August, Intel started laying off 15% of its workforce, or about 15,000 jobs. But the hiring of Tan suggests bigger shake-ups could be down the line.
“My expectation is that we will see a lot of cost cuts,” tweeted IT analyst Patrick Moorhead, who also said Tan will need to decide whether Intel remains in the costly foundry business.
In selecting Tan, Intel’s board cited his 20-year record in the software and semiconductor industry. He previously worked as CEO for Cadence Design Systems, a San Jose-based provider of software to design and test semiconductor chips.
Tan has a tough task before him. Rivals including Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm have been tapping Taiwan’s TSMC to churn out cutting-edge silicon for PCs. Even Intel has harnessed TSMC’s technology for some of its own processors. Meanwhile, Nvidia has been dominating chips sales for generative AI, a market that Intel has been missing out on.
To turn things around, the company has been betting on its 18A chip-making process, which is scheduled to start producing cutting-edge PC chips in the second half of 2025. Under Gelsinger, Intel also made a huge push to expand into foundry business, putting it into direct competition with TSMC, although the investment has cost it tens of billions of dollars.
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In Wednesday’s announcement, Tan said: “Intel has a powerful and differentiated computing platform, a vast customer installed base and a robust manufacturing footprint that is getting stronger by the day as we rebuild our process technology roadmap.”
Still, building up its foundry business won’t be easy amid heightened competition. Last month, Intel announced it was delaying its $28 billion factory in Ohio until 2030. This comes as TSMC plans to invest another $100 billion to build three new fabs in Arizona.
In the meantime, Intel added that its co-CEOs prior to Tan’s appointment, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, will remain as CFO and CEO of Intel Products, respectively.
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About Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
