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Raja Koduri is joining Intel to help it develop high-end discrete GPUs

By Koh Wanzi - on 9 Nov 2017, 11:32am

Raja Koduri is joining Intel to help it develop high-end discrete GPUs

The rumors were true after all. Intel has announced that it has hired Raja Koduri as Chief Architect and Senior VP, the latest development in a saga that started when the chipmaker announced that it had teamed up with AMD to integrate Radeon graphics into its 8th-generation mobile processors.

Shortly after that announcement, news broke that Koduri had left AMD, midway into a three-month sabbatical. While Koduri’s internal memo to AMD made it sound like his departure was a personal decision, this move to a rival chipmaker certainly makes things a whole lot more interesting.

Koduri will oversee the newly formed Core and Visual Computing Group at Intel, and will be responsible for growing the company’s GPU business, particularly the field of discrete GPUs.

The former head of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) has extensive experience in this area, having served twice as manager of AMD’s graphics business and as director of graphics architecture at Apple between his AMD tenures. Most recently, he led the development of AMD's Vega graphics chip

The other big news is clearly the revelation that Intel wants to focus on high-end discrete graphics. This isn’t the first time Intel has dabbled in discrete graphics – there was the i740 Accelerated Graphics Port card in 1998 and the Larrabee project in the late 2000s – but the company has since spent a long time away from the market.

Instead, it’s channeled its efforts into things like the integrated graphics solutions in its Core processors and its Xeon Phi products.

One of the key implications of Intel’s new focus on discrete GPUs is that it would then be in direct competition with AMD and NVIDIA in this area. NVIDIA has long jostled with Intel in the compute and server business, but Intel’s entry into high-end GPUs could turn what was long a duopoly into a three-way fight.

It could also put AMD in a tougher position, as Intel has the financial and fabrication resources to tackle NVIDIA, something AMD has always been missing. 

But Intel says it now wants to bring these high-end discrete graphics solutions into what it’s referred to as a “broad range of computing segments”, so its ambitions are quite far-reaching. It’s also targeting areas like compute, media, imaging, machine and artificial intelligence, and edge computing, the latter of which seems to suggest an interest in IoT devices. And while Intel didn't explicitly state that these high-end GPUs would include the consumer PC market, it seems like there's a good chance it could.

As for Koduri, he had this to say:

“I have admired Intel as a technology leader and have had fruitful collaborations with the company over the years. 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 helps accelerate the data revolution.”

He will start at Intel in early December.

Source: Intel

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