Alex Katouzian, the “Snapdragon Brother” who has appeared on many major technology product launches such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, has now officially joined Intel! On May 4, local time, Intel officially announced the appointment of two core executives to comprehensively strengthen its core business layout and AI innovation strategy. Among them, the joining of Alex Katouzian, a former core executive of Qualcomm Technologies, has become the most watched personnel change in the global semiconductor industry.
Alex Katouzian officially takes office as Intel Corporation’s Executive Vice President and Client Computing & Physical AI Group (Client Computing & Physical AI Group), reports directly to Intel CEO Chen Liwu and will officially take up his new post this month.
He will be in charge of Intel’s core PC client computing business . He will also lead the development of emerging physical AI markets such as robots, autonomous machines, and various edge AI devices, and promote Intel’s comprehensive transformation from traditional PC business to AI PC and edge intelligent terminals.
As a veteran practitioner with more than 35 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, Alex Katouzian has worked at Qualcomm for nearly 25 years. He is the core decision-maker within Qualcomm after CEO Cristiano Amon and is known in the industry as Qualcomm's "second in command."
Qualcomm CEO Anmon and Katuzan
In 2002, he joined Qualcomm as a senior engineer and was promoted to executive vice president and general manager of the mobile, computing and XR business groups. He was fully responsible for chip and software research and development, operating profit and loss, customer relations and ecological layout of all types of Snapdragon platform products.
During his tenure at Qualcomm, he personally built and expanded the Snapdragon brand, developing it from a single mobile phone chip to a global computing platform spanning mobile phones, PCs, XR, automobiles, and wearables.
He led Qualcomm to enter the PC market, promoted the Windows on Arm strategy, promoted the acquisition of the Nuvia team, and spawned the Snapdragon X Elite chip that can compete head-on with Intel.
At the same time, he also led the team to provide long-term core chips and technical support for the Meta Quest series of XR devices, establishing Qualcomm's industry leading position in the XR field.
On the same day, Intel also announced another important appointment. Pushkar Ranade was officially promoted to the company's chief technology officer. He had previously served as the interim chief technology officer.
Ranade will advance the company’s technology strategy, lead specialized technology projects, and drive development in key emerging areas including quantum computing, neuromorphic computing, photonics and novel materials.
It is worth mentioning that This is not the first time Intel has poached core talents from Qualcomm. In January this year, Eric Demers, former senior vice president of engineering and head of GPU at Qualcomm Technologies, switched to Intel to be responsible for GPU research and development of AI and data center workloads.
The continuous poaching of core Qualcomm executives also clearly highlights Intel’s strategic intention to increase AI transformation and reshape the core competitiveness of client computing.