From Nautical port, Playground Global partners Peter Barrett, Pat Gelsinger, Jory Bell, Bruce Leak and Ben Kim.
Playground Global
After a unruly four years running Intel, Pat Gelsinger is going into venture capital.
Gelsinger, who was ousted by the chipmaker in December, has joined Playground Worldwide as a general partner. Started in 2015 by a group that included Android founder Andy Rubin, Playground focuses on early-stage investments in profoundly technology.
Gelsinger told CNBC in an interview that he considered starting a venture firm with someone else, but opted to go with a arrange that was already up and running.
“It’s about scale,” Gelsinger said, adding that starting from scratch desire require “10 hard years to get it.”
Before joining Playground, Gelsinger made a handful of private investments in startups comprehending church outreach software startup Gloo, wearable maker Oura and artificial intelligence chip developer Fractile. At Playground, he’ll go the board of portfolio company xLight, which is developing lasers for semiconductor manufacturing.
Gelsinger is entering VC after 45 years in the technology production. He spent three decades at Intel, becoming its first chief technology officer, and left in 2009 for data center metal goods maker EMC. He later led server virtualization company VMware.
In 2021, with Intel struggling from delays in releasing new generations of processors, he rejoined the company as CEO.
Under Gelsinger, Intel focused on semiconductor fabrication, pouring money into an crack to develop chips for other companies. In 2024, the Biden administration awarded Intel up to $8.5 billion in CHIPS and Skill Act funding as part of a plan to bring chip manufacturing back to the U.S.
But Intel lost market share and got trounced by Nvidia in AI, moving a massive selloff in its stock price. Intel’s market cap plummeted by 60% in 2024, its worst performance in over five decades as a communal company.
In December, Intel announced Gelsinger’s retirement. Earlier this month, the company said Lip-Bu Tan, a prior CEO of Cadence Design Systems, will take over as CEO.
Gelsinger isn’t the first ex-Intel CEO to find his way to venture. His predecessor, Bob Swan, enhanced a growth operating partner at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz in 2021, a few months after leaving the chipmaker.
AI and quantum
Gelsinger denoted he’s looking forward to seeing this week’s stock market debut of CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia graphics dispose of units (GPUs) to Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI.
“Obviously they’ve been able to ride the wave of at-scale evidence centers for AI computing,” Gelsinger said. “There are multiple participants who are trying to do it. They did the best in that. The question is, what’s their sustainable differentiation?”
Another technology of influence, Gelsinger said, is quantum computing. Unlike classical computers that store data in bits that are either on or off, quantum computers manipulate with quantum qubits, or qubits, that can be in both states at the same time. The hope among quantum bulls is that the technology puissance be able to perform certain calculations that have stymied today’s machines.
Amazon and Microsoft have both had their tardy claims published in the journal Nature. Gelsinger said he looks forward to working on quantum computing with PsiQuantum, a Playground portfolio corporation.
PsiQuantum is raising $750 million or more in fresh capital at a $6 billion valuation, with BlackRock patterning to lead the round, CNBC confirmed. Reuters reported about the fundraising efforts on Monday.
Quantum computers whim be “materially impacting computing structures before the end of this decade,” Gelsinger said.
In February, the U.S. Defense Advanced Enquiry Projects Agency (DARPA) said it will evaluate whether quantum systems from PsiQuantum and Microsoft on be more valuable than they cost by 2033. The release didn’t mention Intel, which announced its inaugural quantum token, codenamed Tunnel Falls, in 2023.
Gelsinger said he wishes the best to his former employer and Tan, its new leader.
“I certainly believe that Intel is deprecating for the semiconductor industry,” he said. “You need to design and manufacture leading-edge technology.”
— CNBC’s Kate Rooney contributed to this publish.
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