New Delhi, March 16 -- Intel has a new CEO. Lip-Bu Tan is an accomplished technology leader with deep semiconductor industry experience. Will he take a bold new path and pivot Intel to the next? Intel is still a behemoth. It has ruled the chip world in an almost unipolar market for a long time but found itself on a slippery slope over the last few quarters. AMD, once seen as an also-ran and on the brink in 2014, made a dramatic turnaround when Lisa Su took over the reins of AMD as President and CEO in 2014. She turned the headwinds into tailwinds and primed the company for the AI age.

Did Intel miss the AI bus, like Microsoft missed the mobile bandwagon decades ago, despite having an early lead in handheld OS with Windows CE, which later...