Pat Gelsinger has officially replaced Bob Swan as the new CEO of Intel. The company confirmed his transition in a press release published today, which noted that Gelsinger is the eighth chief executive officer in the company’s history. His previous role was CEO of cloud computing and virtualization software and services giant VMWare.
“As the incoming CEO, I am just really thrilled that we have the opportunity to take this great icon of a company, this company that has been crucial to every aspect of technology, and have it be that leader again into the future,” Gelsinger said in a press release.
“Because I believe that Intel has a treasure trove of technologists, of technology, and ultimately its core DNA is being that technology leader for the future. I’m just thrilled as a technologist, as a geek at heart, to be able to be in that leadership role to help bring the passions, the history, the opportunity of this great company forward as never before. Our best days are in front of us.”
Gelsinger is stepping in at a crucial time for Intel, as the company is facing increasingly stiff competition from AMD and its Ryzen processors, which have rapidly grown in popularity and market share thanks to the performance gains enabled by TSMC’s advanced processes. One of the biggest decisions that the new CEO is expected to make is whether or not Intel should outsource its Core CPUs to the Taiwanese giant for manufacturing.