Intel to Develop Discrete GPUs, Hires Raja Koduri as Chief Architect & Senior VP
By Ryan Smith -- November 8, 2017
anandtech.com
Though perhaps the biggest wildcard here is Intel’s timetable. Nothing about Intel’s announcement says when the company wants to launch these high-end GPUs. If, for example, Intel wants to design a GPU from scratch under Raja, then this would be a 4+ year effort and we’d easily be talking about the first such GPU in 2022. On the other hand, if this has been an ongoing internal project that started well before Raja came on board, then Intel could be a lot closer. Given what kind of progress NVIDIA has made in just the last couple of years, I can only imagine that Intel wants to move quickly, and what this may boil down to is a tiered strategy where Intel takes both routes, if only to release a big Gen9.5(ish) GPU soon to buy time for a new architecture later.
In directing these tasks, Raja Koduri has in turn taken on a very big role at Intel. Until recently, Intel’s graphics lead was Tom Piazza, a Sr. Fellow and capable architect, but also an individual who was never all that public outside of Intel. By contrast, Raja will be a much more public individual thanks to the combination of Intel’s expanded GPU efforts, Raja’s SVP role, and the new Core and Visual Computing group that has been created just for him.
For what Intel is seeking to do, it’s clear why they picked Raja, given his experience inside and outside of AMD, and more specifically, with integrated graphics at both AMD and Apple. The flip side to that however is that while Apple’s graphics portfolio boomed under Raja during his time at the company, his most recent AMD stint didn’t go quite as well. AMD’s Vega GPU architecture has yet to live up to all of its promises, and while success and failure at this level is never the responsibility of a single individual, Intel will certainly be looking to have a better launch than Vega. Which, given the company’s immense resources, is definitely something they can do.
But at the end of the day, this is just the first step for Intel and for Raja. By hiring an experienced hand like Raja Koduri and by announcing that they are getting into high-end discrete GPUs, Intel is very clearly telegraphing their intent to become a major player in the GPU space. Given Intel’s position as a market leader it’s a logical move, and given their lack of recent discrete GPU experience it’s also an ambitious move. So while this move stands to turn the PC GPU market as we know it on its head, I’m looking forward to seeing just what a GPU-focused Intel can do over the coming years.
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