Intel Hires Former AMD Exec Raja Koduri To Spearhead High-End Graphics Group

News broke yesterday that AMD’s Raja Koduri would be leaving the company after a brief sabbatical. It turns out that the former head of the Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) won’t be out of work for long – Intel just announced that Koduri would be joining the team to head up a newly formed Core and Visual Computing Group, and as a general manager of a new initiative to drive edge and client visual computing solutions. The rumor we posted this morning turned out to be true.

With Koduri’s help, Intel plans to unify and expand its IP across multiple segments including core computing, graphics, media, imaging and machine learning capabilities for the client and data center segments, artificial intelligence, and emerging opportunities like edge computing. Intel’s press release explicitly states that it would also expand its strategy to deliver high-end, discrete graphics solutions. Wow.

"Raja is one of the most experienced, innovative and respected graphics and system architecture visionaries in the industry and the latest example of top technical talent to join Intel," said Dr. Murthy Renduchintala, Intel's chief engineering officer and group president of the Client and Internet of Things Businesses and System Architecture. "We have exciting plans to aggressively expand our computing and graphics capabilities and build on our very strong and broad differentiated IP foundation. With Raja at the helm of our Core and Visual Computing Group, we will add to our portfolio of unmatched capabilities, advance our strategy to lead in computing and graphics, and ultimately be the driving force of the data revolution."

This announcement also comes just after Intel revealed that it would be employing AMD’s Vega GPU architecture for a new mobile processor that will drive high-end graphics performance into smaller, slimmer, and sleeker mobile form factors. With AMD essentially spinning the Radeon Technologies Group into its own entity, Intel now leveraging AMD graphics technology, and a top-level executive like Koduri responsible for said graphics tech switching teams, we have to wonder how the relationship between Intel and AMD’s RTG with evolve.

"I have admired Intel as a technology leader and have had fruitful collaborations with the company over the years," Koduri said. "I am incredibly excited to join the Intel team and have the opportunity to drive a unified architecture vision across its world-leading IP portfolio that help's accelerate the data revolution."

Koduri's move comes at a time when Intel is facing fierce competition in many major market segments, from desktop and mobile computing, to servers and the data center. It is going to be interesting to see how this all shakes out in the coming months.