Intel snaps AMD's ex-graphics chief, GPU war to intensify

Intel, even during their prime in PC era was never a leader in graphics. It's not that they didn’t invest a fortune in research but the gamers always preferred superior solutions from AMD and NVIDIA for fulfilling their graphics needs. In fact this week Intel announced a new laptop chip which featured an Intel processor and an AMD GPU, which itself is a manifestation of AMD’s superiority in GPU segment. However, Intel hasn’t really given up on graphics yet.

They have hired AMD’s graphics chief. Raja Koduri, who until this week had served as AMD senior VP and chief architect of the Radeon Technologies graphics division, is now taking up the same position at Intel’s Core and Visual Computing Group. It basically means that AMD’s graphics boss is now Intel’s graphics boss.

Koduri is expected to expand Intel’s position in integrated graphics for the PC market with high-end discrete graphics solutions for a broad range of computing segments.

Intel believes that under Koduri’s leadership, the company will unify and expand differentiated IP across computing, graphics, media, imaging, and machine intelligence capabilities for the client and data center segments, artificial intelligence, and emerging opportunities like edge computing.

“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,” he added.

Koduri is a renowned name in the industry and brings more than 25 years of experience in visual and accelerated computing advances across a broad range of platforms, including PCs, game consoles, professional workstations and consumer devices. His deep technical expertise spans graphics hardware, software and system architecture.

“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.”

During his reign at AMD, he was responsible for overseeing all aspects of graphics technologies used in AMD’s APU, discrete GPU, semi-custom and GPU compute products. Prior to AMD, Koduri served as director of graphics architecture at Apple Inc., where he helped establish a leadership graphics sub-system for the Mac product family and led the transition to Retina computer displays.

Koduri will officially start in his new role at Intel in early December.