Intel poaches chief cloud gaming and console SoC guy from AMD

Intel has grabbed another high-up executive from AMD. TechPowerUp reports the chip giant hired Ali Ibrahim as a vice-president within the Architecture, Graphics and Software group. His exact responsibilities at Intel are unknown but it's most likely related to the Xe effort.

Ibrahim worked at AMD for 13 years and was the chief architect of the company's cloud gaming and console SoC business. The site speculates Intel will try to pitch semi-custom chips with x86 cores and integrated graphics to cloud and console gaming makers, similar to what AMD has done for the upcoming generation of consoles from Microsoft and Sony.

Intel is the only other company that is capable of building semi-custom chips for someone like Microsoft or Sony as the inventor of x86, provided it has a GPU that can match AMD's in the console space. Likewise, with gaming taking baby steps to the cloud as big players such as Google betting on it, Intel sees an opportunity for cloud gaming GPUs that aren't too different from its "Ponte Vecchio" scalar processors.