Intel today announced the appointment of Justin Hotard as executive vice president and general manager of its Data Center and AI Group (DCAI), effective Feb. 1.
Hotard (pictured here) was EVP/GMof High-Performance Computing, AI and Labs at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), a position that included directing the company’s central applied research group, Hewlett Packard Labs. Prior to joining HPE in 2015, Hotard served as president of NCR Small Business and held corporate development and operating positions at Symbol Technologies and Motorola Inc.
In his new position, Hotard succeeds Sandra Rivera, who on January 1 became the chief executive officer of the Programmable Solutions Group, an Intel stand-alone business.
The move comes at a time of renewed HPC-AI server chip activity at Intel, the company having announced the 5th Gen Intel “Emerald Rapids” Xeon CPU family last month while also touting the performance of its Gaudi GPU accelerator.
This isn’t the first time senior executives with bearing on HPC have switched positions between Intel and HPE. Nearly two years ago, HPE hired former Intel senior HPC executive Trish Damkroger as chief product officer of the HPC & AI Organization.
Hotard joined HPE in in 2015 as vice president of strategy, planning and operations of the Data Center Infrastructure Group. Prior to his most recent position there he was SVP of corporate transformation.
Hotard will become a member of Intel’s executive leadership team and report directly to CEO Pat Gelsinger. He will be responsible for Intel’s data center products spanning enterprise and cloud, including the Intel Xeon processor family, graphics processing units (GPUs) and accelerators. He will also play an integral role in driving the company’s mission to bring AI everywhere.
In a LinkedIn post, Hotard said; “While at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, I have had the honor of working with incredibly talented people. Together, we have entered new markets and ushered in new breakthroughs with exascale and AI. I am grateful to Antonio Neri for giving me the opportunity to grow and scale as a technology leader.”
“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,” said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. “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.”
Hotard earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Business Administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
