Intel AI Data Center VP Joins AMD
Saurabh Kulkarni, Intel’s Vice President of Data Center AI Product Management, has left Intel to join rival chipmaker AMD. His departure was first reported by CRN and later confirmed by Intel.
Kulkarni had joined Intel in August 2023, marking his second tenure at the company. Previously, he spent 13 years at Intel as a CPU senior design engineer and senior security and hardware architect before moving to Microsoft. He has also worked at Oracle and Graphcore.
Key Contributions at Intel
- Led the definition of reference architecture for Ethernet-based scale-up and scale-out systems with Gaudi accelerators.
- Championed the rack-scale systems initiative for data center-scale AI systems.
- Focused on driving silicon photonics strategy for GPU interconnects to enhance scalability and performance for future data center systems.
Context of Departure
This move follows Intel’s recent losses of senior executives, including its second senior fellow and Xeon chief architect earlier this year.
“Spearheaded reference architecture definition for Ethernet-based scale-up and scale-out systems with Gaudi accelerators… [and] championed the rackscale systems initiative for data center scale AI systems at Intel.”
“Driving silicon photonics strategy for GPU interconnect to improve scalability and performance for next-generation data center scale systems.”
Kulkarni's transition to AMD highlights ongoing shifts among top executives in the semiconductor industry.
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