Intel Announces Deepak Patil as New Leader of GPU Division

[T0@st]

Intel has appointed Deepak Patil as the new corporate vice president and general manager of its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group. Patil is set to succeed Raja Koduri in this leadership role - company CEO Pat Gelsinger was the first person to announce news (last month) of Koduri's departure from Intel. At the time of his leaving Team Blue, Koduri's official job title was "Executive Vice President and Chief Architect" so the wording of his successor's executive ranking is slightly different. Patil is the current chief technology and strategy officer at the Intel Data Center and AI Group, and was previously senior vice president at Dell APEX USA. He will be taking over directly from interim AXG division leader Jeff McVeigh.

The official Intel statement regarding its new leadership appointment states: "Intel will deliver competitive accelerated computing products and build scalable systems with easy-to-program software on a predictable cadence. Deepak Patil will serve as the CVP and General Manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group. Deepak recently held the position of DCAI Chief Technology and Strategy Officer. Having held senior engineering leadership positions across the high-tech industry, including being a founding member of Microsoft Azure and leading Dell's APEX as-a-service business, he understands the important role that software and open ecosystems play in enabling application developers and service providers to bring innovative solutions to market, at scale."




The statement continues: "His rich systems, software and services experience will build on the deep silicon and graphics architecture and engineering expertise in AXG, to accelerate the growth of Intel's position in the AI, HPC and client graphics markets. Jeff McVeigh will return to leading the Super Compute Group while also helping Deepak ramp in his new role." Intel has implemented several internal restructures in recent times - Koduri's AXG Graphics Unit was a notable example - late last year it was split into two groups. Patil will likely face much scrutiny from peers (and outsiders) as he steers the reformed graphics hardware group, but Intel seems to be committed to the project - reports from earlier this month suggest that Team Blue has invested heavily in next generation discrete GPU architectures - Battlemage and Celestial.

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[Ferrum Master]

Does he have some vague experience leading a team designing a GPU really? Somebody maybe knows.

 

[Aquinus]

Does he have some vague experience leading a team designing a GPU really? Somebody maybe knows.

I don't believe he has GPU expertise, but he's been in engineering leadership at Intel for a while. I'm not sure how that's going to turn out.

 

[KrazyT]

At least, they don't kill the GPU division, and that's a good news !

 

[dirtyferret]

Does he have some vague experience leading a team designing a GPU really? Somebody maybe knows.

His background is cloud computing although he's there more to lead than to design.

 

[ZoneDymo]

I don't believe he has GPU expertise, but he's been in engineering leadership at Intel for a while. I'm not sure how that's going to turn out.

sometimes its a good thing to have a boss who is not really all that knowledge about the product but good at directing and management and listening to the experts, if he fits that role Intel could be in good shape.

 

[Ferrum Master]

sometimes its a good thing to have a boss who is not really all that knowledge about the product, but good and directing and management and listening to the experts, if he fits that role Intel could be in good shape.

With all those Intel experts we can get only another larrabee again.

I am rather skeptical on this, may he pardon me, I wish him only luck for the sake of competition.

 

[kondamin]

Looks like a numbers guy, i Hope I’m wrong.

 

[Tek-Check]

The slide shows "Q1 2022". Was the pun intended?

 

[Wirko]

sometimes its a good thing to have a boss who is not really all that knowledge about the product but good at directing and management and listening to the experts, if he fits that role Intel could be in good shape.

I know nothing about him but I very much agree with this general remark. He also needs to be very good at communication, upwards, downwards, sideways, diagonally, outwards, there are many parties involved. For one, communicating with engineers is hard, with very talented ones it's even harder.

Hah, and being at Intel, he should be able to draw a complete diagram of the corporate structure, at least the top three levels, with full job titles of every single person, even if somebody wakes him up in the middle of the night. Nah, that's too much to ask for, let's make it two levels.

 

[Blitzkuchen]

Anything would be better than Kodurj, he sucks very hard at AMD and wasnt good by Intel.

Its time for a new Face.

 

[wNotyarD]

Hah, and being at Intel, he should be able to draw a complete diagram of the corporate structure, at least the top three levels, with full job titles of every single person, even if somebody wakes him up in the middle of the night. Nah, that's too much to ask for, let's make it two levels.

Being at Intel, he should be able do draw a complete roadmap of his division products, at least three generations ahead, with full scalability for every single market, even if someone messes up and forces delays and roadmaps over other roadmaps.

 

[lemonadesoda]

GPU is dead. If Intel was going to make a strategic investment in GPU they would have said so in their statement. No. They talk about AI and predictable scaleable accelerated compute cadence for “easy to program” software for developers. That aint GPU.

 

[Wye]

sometimes its a good thing to have a boss who is not really all that knowledge about the product but good at directing and management and listening to the experts, if he fits that role Intel could be in good shape.

Sometimes yes. Sometimes not.

About purely non technical managers:

• They are good at making the employees happy and focusing on social connections.
• They are unable to make any decisions by themselves.
• They are serial meeting spawners, wasting everyone's time and hiding beneath someone else decision.
• They are unable to evaluate the value of experts, so they approve them based on power and influence.

The best managers are those that are able to successfully combine technical and managerial skills. Those who know when they can respond with a decision in 2 seconds or if it's worth a meeting time slot with one or multiple persons to get the right/whole perspective.
The key is to find the right balance for each unique situation.

 

[JustJohnny]

With a deep background in cloud infrastructure since 2009 Azure, Deepak Patil is out of his element here and severely lacks the necessary hardware design experience.

Having held senior engineering leadership positions across the high-tech industry

His profile says otherwise PR folks. Zero engineering positions in sight.

He must be a great team builder. All the best to ya.

 

[Aquinus]

GPU is dead. If Intel was going to make a strategic investment in GPU they would have said so in their statement. No. They talk about AI and predictable scaleable accelerated compute cadence for “easy to program” software for developers. That aint GPU.

That is the new leader's background, not their focus. It's probably the closest they have to somebody with GPU chops; somebody who has worked in the HPC space.

His profile says otherwise PR folks. Zero engineering positions in sight.

He must be a great team builder. All the best to ya.

To be fair, a lot of engineering leaders I work with are no longer engineers, hence the fact that they're in a leadership position. Usually in this area there are two tracks, the people track and the technical track. If you're a manager, managing directory or some other executive/senior leadership person, then you've chosen the people track. That's how these things work. People who choose the technical track are not managing an entire program, that's not in the scope of their job as a technical resource.

 

[yeeeeman]

Why does Intel have to follow this strict, stupid rule of raising the guy underneath?
AXG needs an engineering guru at the top, not a guy with great "software expertise" at Dell and Microsoft.

 

[JustJohnny]

To be fair, a lot of engineering leaders I work with are no longer engineers, hence the fact that they're in a leadership position.

To no longer be an engineer, one must be in such role in the first place. This individuals profile doesn't show an engineering background, at least not one that would be applicable to their new role. Not saying it's a requirement, but in my experience it is definitely a valuable asset.

 

[R0H1T]

Being at Intel, he should be able do draw a complete roadmap of his division products, at least three generations ahead, with full scalability for every single market, even if someone messes up and forces delays and roadmaps over other roadmaps.

So you want him to be strange?