In a significant talent acquisition that underscores the intense competition for top minds in the artificial intelligence sector, OpenAI has hired Sachin Katti, who until recently served as Intel's chief technology and AI officer.[1] Katti's move to the influential AI research and deployment company, known for creating ChatGPT, marks a notable loss for the semiconductor giant as it navigates a critical turnaround and vies for a larger share of the booming AI market.[2][3] The departure has prompted Intel's CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, to personally take the helm of the company's AI and Advanced Technologies Groups, signaling the high strategic priority the chipmaker places on its artificial intelligence initiatives.[4][5] This high-profile transition highlights the shifting dynamics within the technology industry, where the race to develop and deploy advanced AI is increasingly dictated by access to elite expertise.

Katti's role at Intel was substantial and central to its AI ambitions. Appointed as chief technology and AI officer in April as part of a broader management reorganization under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Katti was responsible for steering Intel's overall AI strategy, product roadmap, and research endeavors through Intel Labs.[6][7] He also managed the company's relationships with the startup and developer ecosystems.[6] Before this expanded role, Katti, who joined Intel approximately four years ago, led the Network and Edge Group (NEX).[8][1] His background is a unique blend of academia and entrepreneurship; he was a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University for nearly 15 years and co-founded two successful tech startups, Kumu Networks and Uhana, the latter of which was acquired by VMware.[9][10][11] This deep experience in networking, edge computing, and AI positioned him as a key figure in Intel's efforts to challenge competitors, particularly Nvidia, whose GPUs have become the industry standard for training large-scale AI models.[9][2]

At OpenAI, Katti will take on a crucial role focused on the foundational infrastructure required to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), a theoretical form of AI with human-like cognitive abilities.[6] OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman publicly welcomed Katti, stating he would be "designing and building our compute infrastructure, which will power our AGI research and scale its applications to benefit everyone."[6][4][12] This move signifies OpenAI's deepening push into the hardware side of artificial intelligence, recognizing that the next generation of powerful AI models will require unprecedented levels of computing power and highly specialized infrastructure.[9][2] Katti's expertise in chip design, networking, and large-scale systems makes him exceptionally well-suited to lead this charge, as OpenAI looks to build and optimize its own hardware to meet its escalating computational needs and reduce its reliance on external providers.[9] His arrival is seen as a strategic advantage for OpenAI as it prepares for the next stage of AI development, moving beyond software innovation into the complex world of hardware that will underpin future breakthroughs.[9]

For Intel, Katti's departure is the latest in a series of leadership changes during a challenging period for the company.[1] The chipmaker has been striving to regain its footing and has struggled to produce a data center AI chip that can effectively compete with offerings from Nvidia and those manufactured by TSMC.[11][13] The company's Gaudi AI chips, for instance, failed to meet modest revenue expectations last year.[6] Despite these setbacks, Intel has stressed that AI remains one of its "highest strategic priorities" and that it is focused on executing its product roadmap.[6][14][4] The decision for CEO Lip-Bu Tan to directly oversee the AI groups underscores this commitment.[5] Tan has been actively restructuring the company, flattening its hierarchy and bringing in new talent, such as former Arm executive Kevork Kechichian to lead the data center unit, in an attempt to accelerate its turnaround.[13][11] However, losing a leader of Katti's caliber, who was central to the AI strategy, presents a significant hurdle and raises questions about the company's ability to retain top talent amidst fierce industry competition.[3][15]

The movement of Sachin Katti from a legacy chipmaker to a pioneering AI lab is emblematic of a broader trend reshaping the technology landscape. The immense computational demands of advanced AI are creating a talent vacuum, pulling experts with deep knowledge of hardware, software, and systems toward the epicenters of AI model development.[2] Companies like OpenAI are not just competing on the quality of their algorithms but also on their ability to build and scale the massive, efficient infrastructure needed to train and run them. This has intensified the war for talent, with AI labs increasingly poaching top engineers from established hardware companies. Katti's transition is a clear signal that the future of AI is as much about custom-built, highly optimized compute infrastructure as it is about software, a reality that will continue to drive strategic hiring and realign power dynamics across the technology sector for the foreseeable future.