Track Hyper | Intel welcomes the era of Chen Liwu

Author: Zhou Yuan / Wall Street Insight

The world is watching Chen Liwu, the semiconductor veteran who has just been appointed as the CEO of Intel.

Wall Street has high expectations, and as of the close on March 14, Beijing time, Intel's stock price saw an intraday increase of over 17%, closing up at 14.60%.

On March 13, Intel announced that it has appointed former board member and semiconductor industry veteran Chen Liwu (Lip-Bu Tan) as CEO. This appointment will officially take effect on March 18.

Chen Liwu will succeed David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, who have served as interim co-CEOs since December 2024, and will rejoin the Intel board, from which he resigned in August 2024.

Frank D. Yeary, Intel's interim executive chairman, praised Chen Liwu in a statement: "His expertise in the technology industry, deep relationships with the product and foundry ecosystem, and outstanding track record of creating shareholder value are exactly what Intel needs for its next phase of development."

After Chen Liwu takes office, Zinsner will continue to serve as Intel's executive vice president and chief financial officer, while Johnston Holthaus will remain the CEO of Intel's product division.

During the search for a new CEO, Frank D. Yeary served as the interim executive board chairman, after which he will resume his role as independent board chairman.

At 65 years old, Chen Liwu is a "living fossil" in the semiconductor industry, with a career spanning technology research and development, corporate management, and venture capital, accumulating deep resources across the industry chain.

Chen Liwu holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, a master's degree in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MBA from the University of San Francisco.

Among Chen Liwu's impressive resume, his 12-year leadership at electronic design automation (EDA) giant Cadence Design Systems (2009-2021) stands out.

At the beginning of his tenure, Cadence was facing fierce competition from Synopsys and Magma, with market share continuously declining. Doesn't this situation resemble what Intel is facing now?

By strengthening customer collaboration and acquiring key technology companies (such as system-level design tool provider Jasper Design Automation), Chen Liwu drove Cadence's transformation from a traditional EDA tool provider to a system-level solution provider; by the time he left, the company's revenue had doubled, operating profit margin increased from 10% to 34%, and the stock price had risen over 3200%.

After leaving Cadence, Chen Liwu led the venture capital firm Walden Catalyst Ventures as founding managing partner, focusing on cutting-edge fields such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.

At the same time, Chen Liwu serves on the boards of publicly traded companies such as Schneider Electric and Credo Technology Group, and in 2022, he received the highest honor from the Semiconductor Industry Association, the "Robert N. Noyce Award." Earlier, he was awarded the "Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award" by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) in 2016 Chen Liwu's intersection with Intel began in September 2022, when he joined the board as a "semiconductor revival consultant" to assist then-CEO Pat Gelsinger in formulating a transformation strategy.

However, as Kissinger's aggressive investment plans became increasingly disconnected from market realities, their differences intensified, leading Chen to resign from the board in August 2024.

Chen Liwu's return highlights the board's comprehensive reflection on Gelsinger's Intel revival strategy and confirms Chen's reputation and coordination ability within the industry.

Chen Liwu's leadership at Intel marks a complete correction of Gelsinger's approach.

After Gelsinger took the helm of Intel again in 2021, he proposed the "IDM 2.0" strategy, investing $20 billion to build a new wafer fab in Ohio, intending to regain process leadership through foundry services.

However, consumer electronics demand has continued to weaken since 2023, coupled with intensified competition in AI chips, leading to a sharp decline in Intel's capacity utilization. By the end of 2024, the company's workforce had ballooned to 132,000, while its market value evaporated by over $150 billion, only 1/30 of Nvidia's.

An even more critical misstep was Intel's sluggish response to artificial intelligence.

While Nvidia dominated the GPU market with a "new product every year" rhythm, Intel still relied on its traditional CPU advantages and failed to timely launch competitive accelerator products.

Gelsinger's promoted Habana Labs and Ponte Vecchio projects progressed slowly, ultimately forcing the board to initiate a CEO replacement process in December 2024.

For Chen Liwu, taking over Intel is akin to "borrowing a rapidly descending knife." Currently, Chen faces three challenges, or tasks: first is strategic contraction, which must balance investment and profitability.

Gelsinger's led foundry expansion has resulted in capital expenditures exceeding 35% of revenue, far surpassing TSMC's 20%-25%.

Will Chen adjust the investment pace? For example, prioritizing the mass production of Intel 18A (1.8nm) process and divesting non-core assets.

During his tenure at Cadence, Chen Liwu's "customer-centric" philosophy may drive Intel to forge closer ties with major clients like Apple and Microsoft, using order certainty to hedge foundry risks.

Second, he must reshape product strength to break through the life-and-death situation of AI and heterogeneous computing.

Intel holds less than 1% of the AI training market share, but with the Gaudi 3 accelerator card and an open ecosystem (such as oneAPI), there remains a chance for a comeback.

Of course, this task is extremely challenging.

Chen Liwu needs to accelerate the integration of technology teams like Habana and Mobileye while leveraging his connections in the EDA field to optimize chip design processes. A potential benefit is that Chen's venture capital background may help uncover collaborations with AI startups to fill ecosystem gaps.

Third, Chen Liwu must restore investor confidence, which will once again test his art of market value management.

As of March 2025, Intel's price-to-earnings ratio (14 times) is far below the industry average (25 times), reflecting the market's doubts about its profitability Will Chen Liwu's shareholder return record at Cadence and Walden possibly lead him to take aggressive buyback and dividend increase measures?

In the short term, the positive reaction of the stock price to the appointment news is largely another form of pressure. Chen Liwu must come up with immediate measures to stabilize or fulfill Wall Street's expectations of him, gaining more breathing space for Intel's future revitalization.

Chen Liwu's Singaporean Chinese background may also assist Intel in its capacity layout in Southeast Asia, avoiding trade barriers. A cross-cultural background often holds unique value in coordinating global supply chains.

From Chen Liwu's previous experience, this veteran with dual backgrounds in semiconductor technology and investment has a pragmatic style and rich experience in the depth of the industry chain, which is an extremely rare quality resource for Intel in the "post-Kissinger era."

Although the road ahead is fraught with challenges, at least at this moment, the market has chosen to cast a vote of confidence with real money. Whether Chen Liwu can continue to write a legend will be a key verification period in 2025