After months of uncertainty, Intel comes back with a big hire and reaffirms its commitment to GPU technology.
Intel and Qualcomm have traded executives several times over the years, and the trading continues with Intel luring away Qualcomm’s GPU lead.
Eric Demers, a long-time industry veteran GPU engineer, joins Intel as senior vice president and the lead of its GPU engineering team. He most recently led Qualcomm’s GPU efforts as senior vice president of engineering.
Demers’ hiring was announced on LinkedIn by Kevork Kechichian, executive vice president and general manager of the data center group at Intel. Kechichian also announced the hiring of Nicolas Dube to lead Data Center Systems & Solutions (full-stack systems architecture, from chips to apps).
To describe Demers as a heavy hitter would be an understatement: He is to GPUs what Pat Gelsinger and Jim Keller are to CPUs. He joined ATI Technologies in 2000, where he helped develop the Radeon line of GPUs that still exist today.
When AMD bought ATI in 2006, he became CTO of the GPU business before moving to Qualcomm in 2012. There, he led the development of the Adreno GPU hardware and architecture that is used in mobile devices, PCs, automotive systems, IoT devices, and even augmented reality and virtual reality devices.
The hiring of Demers shows that Intel is serious about making a competitive GPU/accelerator to compete with AMD and Nvidia. It has made multiples attempts at GPUs and all have been spectacular failures. If Demers can’t make it work, then I have no idea who could.
Intel has struggled for more than two decades to develop a successful GPU/accelerated computing strategy, going all the way back to the aughts and the ill-fated Larrabee effort. Its most recent efforts centered around Ponte Vecchio and Gaudi chips, neither of which have gained any traction.
Still, CEO Lip-Bu Tan has made AI a top priority, reorganizing the corporate structure around a new unit, the AI Group, but that was dealt a setback last November when Sachin Katti, the head of the group, left Intel for a job at OpenAI.
Still, this shows Intel is firmly behind GPU/accelerator, says Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. “The company has been inconsistent in its messaging and its layoff explanations, causing needless speculation and confusion,” he said. “His biggest challenge will be the Intel management and marketing machine. But that bureaucracy is not unknown to him.”
The results of his involvement will probably not be notable for a year, says Peddie. “He can’t do much about the long-term projects already underway, but he can help them avoid a few land mines, maybe,” he said.
