Intel Wants Lisa Su?

The cost of such a leadership void is high for any company. It's even more critical at a $62.8 billion company.

Las Vegas, Jan. 15, 2019 – 

During the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, we picked up an intriguing rumor circulating among a few C-Level executives that Intel Corp. is pondering the acquisition of AMD.

Given Intel's acrimonious history vs. AMD in the CPU market, common sense says this is an unlikely marriage. Most analysts we reached dismissed it outright.

But seen from the perspective of CES – a colossal tech extravaganza that attracts an audience that embraces technologists, investors, management consultants and speculators – Intel-AMD merger speculation had a certain ring of truth. At the very least, it was a great topic for idle conversation.

CES this year exposed a stark contrast between the two old rivals.

• This year, Intel, which hasn't yet named a new CEO, surrendered the most coveted keynote speech, on Monday night, to LG. (Clearly, the company didn't want to pay for it).
• AMD's CEO Lisa Su delivered a knock-out keynote on Wednesday morning at CES.
• Su discussed AMD processors for three different markets – notebook, desktop and data centers – all designed and manufactured at the 7-nm process node. The first 7-nm chip will become available next month. In contrast, Intel unveiled a 10-nm PC processor at its CES press conference.

Differences between a headless Intel and an AMD under Su's strong leadership were obvious. Technology analysts, used to seeing AMD as perennial underdog to Intel, were impressed by AMD's alpha-dog performance. "I think this was a landmark event," Kevin Krewell, a principal analyst at Tirias Research, told EE Times. "It was quite dramatic for AMD to usurp the leadership role from Intel."