Intel Hires HPE's Justin Hotard To Lead Data Center And AI Group

By becoming the leader of Intel’s Data Center and AI Group, former Hewlett Packard Enterprise executive Justin Hotard will take over a business that is fighting competition on multiple fronts, including against AMD in the x86 server CPU market and Nvidia in the AI computing space.

Intel said it has hired Hewlett Packard Enterprise rising star Justin Hotard to lead the company’s prized Data Center and AI Group.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker said Wednesday that Hotard will become executive vice president and general manager of the business, effective Feb. 1. He will succeed Sandra Rivera, who moved to lead Intel’s Programmable Solutions Group as a new stand-alone business under the company’s ownership on Monday.

Hotard was most recently executive vice president and general manager of high-performance computing, AI and labs at HPE, where he was “responsible for delivering AI capabilities to customers addressing some of the world’s most complex problems through data-intensive workloads,” according to the semiconductor giant.

By becoming the leader of Intel’s Data Center and AI Group, Hotard will take over a business that is fighting competition on multiple fronts: against AMD in the x86 server CPU market, against Nvidia, AMD and smaller firms in the AI computing space, and against the rise of Arm-based server chips from Ampere Computing, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Just last month, the Data Center and AI Group marked the launch of its fifth-generation Xeon processors, which the company said deliver AI acceleration in every core on top of outperforming AMD’s latest EPYC chips “around the clock.” And the business is also fighting its way to win market share from Nvidia in the AI computing market with not just its Xeon CPUs but also its Gaudi accelerator chips and a differentiated software strategy.

The semiconductor giant is making these moves as part of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s grand comeback plan, which seeks to put the company ahead of Asian contract chip manufacturers TSMC and Samsung in advanced chip-making capabilities by 2025 to unlock new momentum.

“Justin is a proven leader with a customer-first mindset and has an impressive track record in driving growth and innovation in the data center and AI,” Gelsinger in a statement.

“Justin is committed to our vision to create world-changing technologies and passionate about the critical role Intel will play in empowering our customers for decades to come,” he added.