Intel Hires Another AMD Executive To Its Graphics Team

Forbes today reported that Intel had hired Devon Nekechuk from AMD. He lastly served as Senior Manager of Product Management since 2017, where he was responsible for managing Radeon GPUs throughout their lifecycle. This included everything from product definition with strategy teams, product development with engineering teams, launches with marketing teams and demand generation with sales teams. According to his LinkedIn profile, Nekechuk joined Intel in February.

Nekechuk is the latest in Intel's vast graphics-oriented hiring spree that was kickstarted in late 2017 with the establishment of the Core and Visual Computing Group under Raja Koduri, who left AMD after a sabbatical as head of the Radeon Technologies Group (RTG). This was followed by Jim Keller, who came from Tesla (which detailed its self-driving chip last week), and Chris Hook from AMD’s marketing team. 

Other notable people that Intel hired to Raja Koduri’s graphics group include Tom Forsyth, former Larrabee architect, Mark Hirsch from AMD, and few other technical people that have been previously reported. A month ago, Intel hired Tom Peterson from NVIDIA, where he had served as director of technical marketing, and most recently, earlier this month Intel snatched Heather Lennon from AMD, where she was the manager of RTG’s marketing and communications.

Even before launching its first discrete graphics card (possibly as early as the middle of next year) based on the Xe architecture, Intel has already assembled a whole army of industry veterans and has also started up its Odyssey program, a community-focused graphics marketing program. 

In the early days of Intel’s discrete graphics announcement, people would often point to Intel’s failed Larrabee attempt last decade, but these hires clearly signal that Intel is in the business of becoming a strong and serious competitor. However, Intel has yet to detail any specifications or other technical details of its discrete graphics line-up that will feature both consumer and data center products.