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Speaking this week at Fortune‘s annual Brainstorm Tech conference, Intel CEO Bob Swan said that what differentiates Intel as computing grows in complexity is the company’s ability to deliver not just products, but solutions (or “platforms”) tuned for specific environments — from cloud data centers to autonomous cars.
“The role of the CPU continues to be incredibly strong,” Swan said. “In addition to that, what a lot of our customers are looking for — as their environments get more complicated — they are not just looking for the CPU or other pieces of hardware for their environment, they are increasingly looking for a platform.”
Swan asserted that Intel brings more capability and technology to this task than “anybody else on the planet.”
The comment comes as Intel transforms to a data-centric company, competing for a nearly $300 billion silicon market opportunity fueled by the growing need to process, move and store exponential amounts of data. Swan pointed to automotive as a market example where more computing horsepower is required to enable safety features today and autonomous cars in the future. This is a market where Intel is already thriving, thanks to its 2017 acquisition of Mobileye.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled about Mobileye being a part of Intel,” Swan said.
The on-stage discussion with Fortune’s executive editor, Adam Lashinsky, also touched on Swan’s “intense respect” for the brilliant engineers at Intel who are reinventing the company with a desire to change the world. He said his role as CEO is to “get them to dream through inquisition.”
» See the full discussion between Swan and Lashinsky on Fortune’s website.