Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has only been in his job for 14 days, but took on hundreds of customers at Intel Vision in a keynote address that answered one central concern: Will Intel keep both sides of its iconic business as a foundry and a chip product designer?

The answer is yes. “Whether the foundry or the product, our priority is the same,” Tan said. “It won’t happen overnight but I know we can get there.” Regarding the Trump administration’s push for domestic chip production, he said, “I’m looking forward to work closely with them to advance shared goals.”

Many analysts have preferred a dual approach, even though rumors circulated for months that Intel’s board wanted to sell off the foundry business to any number of customers from Qualcomm to Broadcom. Later, the rumors turned into questions of whether TSMC would take a 50% role in Intel foundry and syphon customers like Apple into an Intel foundry operation in the US. Tan didn’t really address any of those rumors, instead focusing on a commitment to meet customer needs.

He noted that Intel is on track for its 18 A for Panther Lake high volume production in the second half of the year and working to get large customers lined up, including use of 18A for edge computing. More on Intel foundry operations will be discussed at Intel Direct in late April, he said.

Separately, Intel and IBM announced on Monday that Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerators are available on IBM Cloud in a public cloud environment through production workloads.

“Under my leadership, we will return to an engineering first company,” he said. One way this will happen is inviting some engineering talent that has left Intel to return, while focusing on hiring top talent.

Another focus will be on a focus on software first, instead of developing the more traditional hardware first approach. This will help the company build products focused on customer needs, he said, including offerings around AI and agentic AI.

“We will work to drive continued improvement and AI inference with low power,” Tan said. In the AI data area, he said, “We are not happy with our position and you are not. This is the time to turn a new page.”

Tan repeatedly referred to his tenure as Cadence CEO for 15 years where he oversaw a 3200 % improvement in share value, reaching a $75 billion market capitalization. “Cadence helped to understand a design methodology and I found what it takes to delight customers,” he said.

In addition, he served two years on the Intel board, before he left three months prior to Pat Gelsinger’s sudden departure in December. On the board, he said, “I learned a lot from engineers and it all has prepared me very well…Intel is an iconic and essential company and it is important to the industry and US. I care deeply about Intel success.

“It has been a tough period for quite a long and time and we fell behind in innovation and were too slow to adapt and meet your needs. We need to improve and we will. Be brutally honest with us. I believe hard feedback is the most valuable.

Patrick Moorhead, lead analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, traveled to the Vision event to hear Tan speak and found "nothing new from the keynote on strategy or products." Still, he said the Intel board brought Tan in to change something. "We just don't know yet what it is. We will soon enough. The keynote was all about getting to know him better."

By: DocMemory
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