Well informed sources close to the matter have confirmed that despite publicly denying it, Bob Swan of Intel secretly wants the CEO job. The only other serious candidate within Intel is ex-Qualcomm's Dr. Venkata (Murthy) Renduchintala, group president of the Technology, Systems Architecture & Client Group, and chief engineering officer at Intel.

Intel has been looking for a new permanent CEO since the departure of Bryan Krzanich on June 21. 2018 due to consensual relationship complications. Intel has been gazing for a new CEO ever since.

Some other prominent names that have turned down the offer include Pat Gelsinger the CEO of VMware since September 2012 and Rene James, who probably cannot leave its ARM startup Ampere without being acquired by someone, let's say Intel. Michael Dell was never a serious candidate, why should he leave his baby to Intel? Diane Bryant seems to be out of the race too.

Of course, Intel is interviewing people from outside too, but Pat and Rene are ex-Inteleers who know how the company works. It looks like Gelsinger doesn’t want to make a step backward as he was probably having hard feelings at being pushed out of Intel in 2009 due to Larrabee complications.

Intel is facing one of its biggest crises since the start of the company with its famous Moore’s Law being over, its inability to get its 10nm processors out to the market and increased competition in AI where Intel feels to be slightly behind its competition. Buying into the automotive market and acquiring MobileEye seems like a good move now, but Intel needs to show the community that it can and will do 10nm. And the sooner the better.

That is what the new CEO will have to face but data center growth is something that Intel still enjoys and that pays a lot of bills.