Key takeaways Intel's Chief Technology and AI Officer, Sachin Katti, has departed to join OpenAI, where he will build compute infrastructure for artificial general intelligence research. CEO Lip-Bu Ta...
Intel confirmed Monday that its Chief Technology and AI Officer, Sachin Katti, has left the company to join ChatGPT maker OpenAI, marking a significant loss for the struggling chipmaker as it attempts to establish itself in the artificial intelligence market.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan will now personally oversee the company's AI efforts following the departure.
Katti, who has led Intel's AI initiatives since a management reorganization in January 2025, announced his move to OpenAI via the social media platform X.
The departure comes less than eight months after Tan promoted him to the dual role of Chief Technology Officer and Chief AI Officer in April as part of a broader leadership restructuring.
In a statement addressing Katti's departure, Intel expressed gratitude for his contributions while emphasizing continuity in its AI strategy.
"We thank Sachin for his contributions and wish him all the best. Lip-Bu will lead the AI and Advanced Technologies Groups, working closely with the team," the company said.
Intel stressed that artificial intelligence remains central to its business direction despite the executive shake-up.
"AI remains one of Intel's highest strategic priorities, and we are focused on executing our technology and product roadmap across emerging AI workloads," the company added.
The move places additional responsibilities on Tan, who has been attempting a comprehensive turnaround of the semiconductor giant since taking the helm in March 2025.
The CEO now faces the challenge of personally managing AI operations while simultaneously restructuring the entire organization and addressing competitive pressures from rivals, including Nvidia and AMD.
At OpenAI, Katti will assume a critical role in developing the computational backbone required for the company's ambitious artificial general intelligence research.
OpenAI President Greg Brockman confirmed the appointment on X, stating that Katti will be "designing and building our compute infrastructure, which will power our (artificial general intelligence) research and scale its applications to benefit everyone."
The hire represents a significant acquisition for OpenAI as the company pursues massive infrastructure investments to support next-generation AI systems.
Katti brings deep expertise in networking, edge computing, and systems architecture developed through both academic research and industry leadership.
Before joining Intel approximately four years ago, Katti served as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University for nearly 15 years.
His academic career included groundbreaking research in wireless communications and networking, earning him recognition, including the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award honorable mention and the William Bennett Prize for Best Paper in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.
He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and a bachelor's degree from IIT Bombay.
At Intel, Katti initially worked in the networking group before eventually leading it under former CEO Pat Gelsinger. His promotion to CTO and Chief AI Officer in April 2025 was part of Tan's strategy to flatten the company's leadership structure and accelerate decision-making around AI development.
The departure highlights Intel's ongoing difficulties in retaining top technical talent and competing in the artificial intelligence chip market.
Multiple senior executives have left the company since Tan initiated his turnaround effort in March, including former Global Channel Chief John Kalvin, Vice President of Data Center AI Product Management Saurabh Kulkarni, and 25-year veteran Rob Bruckner.
Intel has struggled to produce data center AI chips capable of rivaling silicon designed by Nvidia and manufactured by Taiwan's TSMC.
While the company's central processors are used in AI server systems, they operate at a much smaller scale than the dominant AI accelerators that have fueled the current technology boom.
The company's Gaudi AI chips fell short of even modest revenue targets, with Intel expecting approximately $500 million in revenue but delivering significantly less.
This performance gap has made it challenging for Intel to attract major customers for both its AI products and contract manufacturing business.
Intel recently unveiled a 160GB energy-efficient data center GPU at the 2025 OCP Global Summit as part of a new annual release cadence aimed at strengthening its position in AI infrastructure.
The company's next-generation data center GPU, Crescent Island, is scheduled to begin customer sampling in the second half of 2026, designed specifically for power and cost-optimized inference workloads in air-cooled enterprise servers.
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