Intel’s Pat Gelsinger Is ‘A Man On A Mission,’ Says VMware CEO
Raghu Raghuram says to expect ‘a lot of collaboration’ between Intel and VMware this year as he touts Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s bullish mission to not only transform Intel, but ‘the state of the chip industry.’
VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram is confident that his former boss, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger (pictured), can transform the semiconductor industry with his plans to make the world’s largest manufacturing site in the U.S.
“He’s a man on a mission, not only transforming Intel, but transforming the state of the chip industry,” said Raghuram in an interview with CRN. “So as busy as I am, I’m sure he’s even busier. So I have a great relationship with Pat, personally.”
Furthermore, Raghuram says VMware and Intel customers as well as channel partners should expect to “see a lot of collaboration with Intel and VMware” this year and beyond.
“We have a great relationship with Intel as a partner for our technology collaboration both on the device side as well as on the server and data center technology side. We work with them on Project Monterey. We work in telco together. We work with them on the end user computing side. Also security, networking—you name it,” said Raghuram.
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Scott Miller, area vice president for World Wide Technology, a $13.4 billion solution provider powerhouse that’s a global partner of Intel and VMware, said “any collaboration” between VMware and Intel is “very good for our clients and the industry as a whole.”
“Think of the art of the possible with Intel at the hardware layer communicating directly with abstracted HAL [hardware abstraction layer] of VMware. Some really cool innovation could take place for performance and security that many verticals could derive benefit from,” said Miller.
In addition to touting its partnership with Intel, Raghuram said Gelsinger’s mission to bring more semiconductor manufacturing into the U.S. would be a great solution for the nation in terms of the ongoing global supply chain shortages and constraints around chips.
Gelsinger plans to develop a $20 billion complex in New Albany, Ohio, that Intel hopes will be operational by 2025. Intel is seeking to build two semiconductor plants for research, development and manufacture computer chips.
“Our expectation is that this becomes the largest silicon manufacturing location on the planet,” said Gelsinger in a recent interview with Time. “When we look to 2030 and beyond, we could be at a dramatically different view of our national supply chains.”
With VMware’s broad and massive portfolio of critical software—spanning from end user computing to data center management—Raghuram is in frequently contact with Gelsinger, who was VMware’s CEO from 2012 to 2021.
“Pat has been a mentor as well as my manager for many years. So of course I talk to him,” said Raghuram, who succeeded Gelsinger last year and has been with VMware for nearly 20 years. “I’ve been very lucky to work for three phenomenal CEOs who I can lean on them if necessary.”
WWT’s Miller said both Gelsinger and Raghuram are top notch technology leaders who can beneficially learn from each other.
“Leaning on Pat for advice should be considered a great luxury and not a detriment,” he said.
In an interview with CRN, Raghu Raghuram explained VMware’s strategy in 2022, which included multi-cloud innovation and building software platforms to help businesses deploy, build, secure, connect and managed applications anywhere.