SINGAPORE, July 12 (Reuters) - Intel's ( INTC ) push

into software is going well and the company could have

cumulative software revenue of $1 billion by the end of 2027,

Chief Technology Officer Greg Lavender told Reuters.

Intel ( INTC ) made north of $100 million in software revenue in

2021, the year Lavender was brought in from cloud computing

company VMware by CEO Pat Gelsinger to steer the chipmaker's

software strategy. Since then, Intel ( INTC ) has bought three software

companies.

"I have a goal of getting to $1 billion of software and

developer cloud subscription revenue," he said. "I think I'm on

track to hit this goal by the end of 2027 ... maybe sooner."

Intel ( INTC ), which generated $54 billion in revenue in 2023,

offers a range of software services and tools for hire, ranging

from cloud computing to artificial intelligence.

Lavender said his strategy is to focus on providing services

in AI, performance and security and the company has been

investing in all three areas.

Separately, Lavender said Intel ( INTC ) is seeing "lots of demand"

for its upcoming Gaudi 3 chip, which he believes can help the

company take second place in the AI chip market.

Intel ( INTC ) and Advanced Micro Devices' ( AMD ) AI processors have

so far not made much headway into denting the dominance of

market leader Nvidia ( NVDA ), which controlled roughly 83% of

the data center chip market in 2023.

Lavender said Intel ( INTC ) is supporting open-source initiatives

seeking to build software and tools that will be able to power a

wide range of AI chips and expects further breakthroughs in

coming months.

Part of Nvidia's ( NVDA ) success is linked to its software CUDA,

which keeps developers tied to Nvidia ( NVDA ) chips. France's antitrust

regulator is set to charge Nvidia ( NVDA ) for suspected anti-competitive

behaviour, sources have said. The watchdog has voiced concerns

about the generative AI sector's dependence on CUDA.

Intel ( INTC ) is part of the UXL Foundation, a consortium of tech

companies developing an open-source project that aims to make

computer code run on any machine, regardless of what chip and

hardware powers it.

Other members include Qualcomm ( QCOM ), Samsung Electronics ( SSNLF )

and Arm Holdings.

Lavender added that Intel ( INTC ) is contributing to Triton, an

OpenAI-led initiative to build an open-source programming

language designed to enhance code efficiency across AI chips.

AMD and Meta are also supporting the project.

Triton is already running on Intel's ( INTC ) existing graphics

processing units and will work on the company's next generation

of AI chips.

"Triton is going to level the playing field," he said.