Exclusive: Intel Taps Ex-Arm, HPE Exec For Data Center Systems Post Amid AI Reorg

In a memo seen by CRN, Intel announces the hiring of Nicolas Dubé as the head of data center systems and Eric Demers as the head of GPU engineering after revealing that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan decided to move its AI accelerator chip team back into the Data Center Group.

Intel has hired a former Arm and HPE executive to take on a new leadership role focused on data center systems and solutions as part of the semiconductor giant’s latest push into the AI infrastructure market, CRN has learned.

The hiring of Nicolas Dubé (pictured), most recently a senior vice president at Arm, was announced by the general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, Kevork Kechichian, in a Tuesday memo to employees. Intel shared a draft of the memo with CRN.

In the memo, Kechichian announced the appointments of Dubé and former Qualcomm executive Eric Demers—who disclosed his move to lead GPU engineering for the chipmaker last Friday—after revealing that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan decided to move the company’s AI accelerator chip team back into the Data Center Group.

The move gives Kechichian—who joined Intel to lead the Data Center Group last September after working with Dubé as an executive at Arm—oversight of the company’s AI accelerator chip efforts in competition with Nvidia and other rivals. Tan has called this one of his top priorities as part of the chipmaker’s latest comeback plan after the company struggled to find customer traction for previous accelerator chip initiatives.

“By joining forces across Xeon, networking and telco, and now AI, these moves strengthen the x86 franchise, which is one of the keystone advantages as AI shifts toward inference and agentic systems,” wrote Kechichian, who is an executive vice president.

As a result of this reorganization, Kechichian said that Jean-Didier Allegrucci, vice president of AI system-on-chip engineering, will report directly to him. Dubé and Demers are also becoming direct reports for the data center leader.

Another Organizational Shake-Up For Intel’s AI Efforts

The reorganization represents a reversal by Tan, who moved Intel’s AI accelerator chip group out of what was previously called the Data Center and AI Group last April, roughly a month after he became the chipmaker’s CEO.

The move also shakes up Intel’s organizational chart once again with Kechichian taking over responsibilities for the company’s AI accelerator chip efforts from Tan. The CEO had taken charge of Intel’s AI group last November after the team’s previous leader, Sachin Katti, left the chipmaker abruptly for a job at ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

In explaining Tan’s decision to move Intel’s AI accelerator chip team back into the Data Center Group, Kechichian said, “AI and the modern data center are fundamentally linked.”

“Customers are standardizing on complete AI platforms spanning compute, networking and software as the industry shifts toward inference and agentic solutions that run across the infrastructure stack. Xeon remains central across head nodes, edge deployments and many inference workloads,” he wrote in the memo.

Intel Keeps Turning To Outsiders For Key AI And Data Center Roles

With the hiring of Dubé and Demers, Intel continued to show its knack for hiring outsiders to fill key data center and AI leadership roles under Tan. This started last June with the appointments of executives like Allegrucci, a longtime chip designer who spent 17 years at Apple, and resumed a few months later with Kechichian.

As the leader of Intel’s data center systems and solutions, Dubé will “drive the technical architecture and strategy for [the Data Center Group] toward full-stack systems and solutions, from chips to applications, ensuring integrated designs across compute, storage and networking,” Kechichian wrote in his memo.

By taking on the role, Dubé will take on oversight of Intel’s integrated silicon photonics solutions team, which previously reported to company executive Jeff McVeigh.

“As we scale and build our architecture, this tighter integration enables the benefits of silicon photonics to be built into the design for solutions needing faster, more power efficient and higher bandwidth communication across the platform,” Kechichian said.

Dubé will draw from his system engineering experience at Arm as well as his 13 years at HPE, where “he led the design, execution and delivery” of the company’s exascale program with the U.S.’s first exascale supercomputer, the AMD-powered Frontier, at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, according to Kechichian.

“His technical career spans high-performance computing, large-scale AI, system architecture and cloud services,” the data center leader wrote.

In detailing Demers’ responsibilities, Kechichian said that the executive, who previously led Qualcomm’s GPU efforts, will lead GPU IP engineering and oversee Intel’s data center GPU solutions. This will involve “orchestrating the work across architecture, compilers and drivers to successfully develop integrated hardware and software,” he added.

Demers “will directly manage the GPU hardware IP team and partner closely” with Lisa Pearce, corporate vice president and general manager of the company’s Software Engineering Group, and the GPU software team to “optimize teams for execution and workflow for highest impact,” Kechichian wrote in the memo.

As the leader of Qualcomm’s GPU efforts, Demers was responsible for the company’s Adreno GPU hardware and architecture, which spanned mobile devices, PCs, IoT devices, automotive systems as well as augmented reality and virtual reality devices.

With the appointment, Kechichian said that Keith Rowe’s GPU IP and architecture team, which previously reported to Allegrucci, will now move to Demers’ team.

“These strategic hires bring deep expertise in critical technologies shaping the modern data center. Together, they will help us deliver integrated solutions that span from silicon to systems to software,” Kechichian wrote in the memo.