An ex-Intel CEO's mission to build a Christian AI: 'hasten the coming of Christ's return' The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. I n March, three months after being forced out of his position as the CEO of Intel and sued by shareholders, Patrick Gelsinger took the reins at Gloo, a technology company made for what he calls the "faith ecosystem" - think Salesforce for churches, plus chatbots and AI assistants for automating pastoral work and ministry support. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. The former CEO's career pivot is taking place as the US tech industry returns to the political realm as a major revenue stream.

Intel executives pledged Tuesday that its upcoming Panther Lake chip will combine the best aspects of its earlier processors, Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake. Intel executives spoke in Las Vegas on the second day of its Intel Vision conference, which engages Intel's partners and customers. Intel's new chief executive Lip-Bu Tan outlined his plans for Intel's new direction on Monday, asking for brutal honesty while pledging to return Intel to greatness. We already knew that Panther Lake would be a critical product for Intel this year. Not only is the chip the next iteration of Intel's PC client roadmap, but it's the first chip on Intel's next-generation 18A manufacturing process.

The tricky thing about naming the year's biggest losers in tech is that in 2024, it once again felt like everyone lost. Amid the depressing spiral that is social media, the will-they-or-won't-they dance of banning TikTok in the US and the neverending edited and deepfaked content that has everyone questioning what's real, the world lost. But a few areas this year stood out as particularly troubling. Specifically, AI and dedicated AI gadgets proliferated more than ever, spreading not only to our digital assistants and search engines but to our wearables as well. We also saw more deterioration in Intel's standing and bid farewell to a robot maker, as well as Lightning cables.

Our collection of the highs and lows of Intel's 2024 will have you reaching for the brandy. I mean, aside from some of Intel's mobile chips, what exactly did it do right? Let's put it this way: when your ex-CEO prays for your company after he was kicked out, it was a bad year. As we've done for other companies in the past, we've collected the best, worst, and head-scratching moments from the past year. Get yourself a hot mug of cider or a cold glass of egg nog, and sit down with as we recap Intel's 2024. And hold on -- it's going to get bumpy.

Despite Intel's recent woes, I didn't expect to see CEO Pat Gelsinger joining 15,000 or so of his colleagues being shown the door. Gelsinger is a storied engineer and business success who laid down an exhaustive rescue plan when he took the helm of the beleaguered chipmaker in 2021. It was never going to be a quick fix, given the company's long legacy of missteps. Gelsinger may be the public face of Intel's current malaise, but the problems started long before his tenure and will likely keep going. Gelsinger was tasked with addressing almost two decades' worth of bad decisions, all of which have compounded.

When veteran engineer and executive Pat Gelsinger returned to Intel as CEO in 2021, the once-great chipmaker was in a slump. After failing to adapt to the mobile era and then missing several steps in cutting-edge microprocessor manufacturing, it was now also falling behind in supplying chips to feed the tech industry's growing hunger for artificial intelligence. With optimism that at times seemed reckless, Gelsinger promised that Intel would make an epic comeback. He vowed to shake up its sleepy corporate culture, refocus on core engineering, and deliver a revitalized manufacturing plan that would put rivals TSMC and Samsung on notice. This week, Gelsinger declared Intel's comeback plan well and truly on track. He announced a rebrand of the company's "foundry" business, which manufactures chips designed by other companies, saying that Intel's latest manufacturing process would later this year yield silicon chips as efficient and capable as ones from TSMC.

Call it a comeback--with consequences not just for Intel but also the US government's hopes of maintaining a lead in artificial intelligence. The troubled chipmaker's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, announced today that Intel is relaunching and expanding its foundry business, which manufactures chip designs for other companies. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also appeared at the Intel event, where he announced that his company will use Intel's relaunched foundry to make future chips. That's a major coup for the chipmaker as it seeks to become relevant again and compete with the world's leading foundry, Taiwan's TSMC, which makes chips for customers that include Apple and Google. "We will need a reliable supply of the most advanced high-performance and high-quality semiconductors," Nadella said.

Intel is one of the biggest names that's in Las Vegas for CES 2024. The company has several talks and panels lined up, including a keynote from CEO Pat Gelsinger. You'll be able to watch that particular event live at 8pm ET on January 9 at Intel's website, along with the CES 2024 site and app. Intel hasn't divulged too much about what Gelsinger will dig into. However, it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that AI is one of the topics at hand. According to Intel, Gelsinger will talk about "the critical roles that silicon and software play in making AI more accessible, providing powerful compute and enabling modern economies."

Technology companies are racing to develop artificial intelligence that can run "unplugged" from the internet, providing users with a more personalized and private experience. During this year's Intel Innovation summit, company CEO Pat Gelsinger unveiled new "AI PCs" that will increase the use of AI on the devices themselves and not depend on the cloud, according to a report from Spectrum. The company is not alone in its quest to optimize its devices to run artificial intelligence "at the edge," unplugged from the internet and run on local hardware. Apple and Qualcomm have also been involved in the race, the report noted, leading a drive toward AI meant to act more as a personalized assistant for the end user. Most AI tools today rely heavily on data centers that require a stable internet connection, at times overburdening servers attempting to keep up with the growing demand.

The AI PC, propelled by Intel's Meteor Lake, is almost here. So why should you care? Intel is building NPU AI inferencing engines into its processors beginning with its 14th-gen Core chip, Meteor Lake, also known as the Core Ultra. Robert Hallock, an AMD veteran now overseeing technical CPU marketing for Intel's microprocessors, said Tuesday that Intel's goal by 2025 is to ship 100 million "AI PCs," a term Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger began using in July. Intel announced the architecture behind the 14th-gen Core Ultra chip on Tuesday, the same day as Intel's Innovation conference began in San Jose.