Sachin Katti, the exec Intel promoted to chief technology and AI officer in April, will leave the x86 giant to join OpenAI after just six months in the job.
Katti was one of new Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan’s early appointments when he took Chipzilla’s big chait in March.
News of Katti’s departure seems to have played out on X, where OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman welcomed the former Intel exec to the AI upstart.
Katti replied with a post in which he declared himself “Excited for the opportunity to work with” Brockman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and others at the company “on building out the compute infrastructure for AGI!” He also said he’s very grateful for the tremendous opportunity and experience at Intel over the last 4 years leading networking, edge computing and AI,” adding it was the “Privilege of a lifetime to have worked closely with” Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan, past CEO Pat Gelsinger, and Intel’s edge and networking boss Nick McKeown.
Lip Bu Tan has said he will add leadership of Intel’s AI efforts to his role.
Katti’s departure is a terrible look for Intel, which has struggled to develop competitive AI accelerators to match those from established rivals Nvidia and AMD. Intel is also arguably behind hyperscalers like Google and AWS that developed their own AI silicon and probably trails Broadcom’s ability to design AI hardware – a capability OpenAI apparently rates so highly it tapped the firm to build its own custom accelerators.
Nor has Chipzilla proven it’s up to the task of making sophisticated AI semiconductors in its foundries, which are yet to secure a major AI customer.
OpenAI also has plenty to prove. The company appears to be losing billions each quarter but has committed to spending many tens of billions on projects including giant datacenter builds, creating a consumer AI device, and developing artificial general intelligence – machines with powers of cognition superior to humans – an effort Katti mentioned as a factor motivating his move from Intel.
OpenAI is doing all of the above while trying to change from a nonprofit structure to allow it to more easily find investors. In recent weeks, CEO Sam Altman has called for government assistance to fund its efforts, on grounds they represent vital national infrastructure.
The Register fancies Katti’s induction process could be eye opening! ®
