SAN FRANCISCO, March 12 (Reuters) - Lip-Bu Tan may be

one of the most powerful technology executives you've never

heard of. As he steps into one of the highest-profile jobs on

the planet, CEO of troubled, storied chipmaker Intel ( INTC ), his

performance will be on full display.

Tan, named Intel ( INTC ) CEO on Wednesday, faces an enormous

challenge in turning around the operations of a company that put

the "silicon" in Silicon Valley.

While little known to the public, his advantage is that

virtually every one of Intel's ( INTC ) former and potential customers

knows him and has done business with him, either buying one of

the many startups he backed or using software from a company he

ran.

Tan rubs shoulders with the likes of Lisa Su from Advanced Micro

Devices ( AMD ) and Nvidia's ( NVDA ) Jensen Huang, two AI chip

leaders who, according to Reuters reports, had been pitched to

invest in Intel ( INTC ). His efforts are also likely to be closely

watched by U.S. President Donald Trump, who is eager for Intel ( INTC )

to rebound.

Tan "can leverage his experience and especially his industry

connections, while also pursuing excellence within Intel ( INTC )," said

independent analyst Jack Gold. "Hopefully the board will stay

out of his way as he makes needed changes."

LEAN OPERATOR

To right the semiconductor industry's biggest ship, Tan, 65,

may use underdog strategies that helped him turn around smaller

companies that later became big.

Born in Malaysia, raised in Singapore and now a naturalized

American citizen, Tan came to the U.S. for his formative years

of advanced education, studying nuclear engineering at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then moved to

California for business school and founded venture capital firm

Walden International in 1987. That firm, named for the pond

where writer Henry David Thoreau sought an unconventional life,

made unconventional bets.

Tan believed that relatively small teams of startup

engineers with good chip design ideas could successfully compete

against incumbent chip giants, and he poured money into hundreds

of startups. For example, he took a stake in Annapurna Labs, a

startup later purchased by Amazon.com ( AMZN ) for $370 million

that has become the heart of its in-house chip division. Amazon ( AMZN )

says it now deploys more of its own central processors than it

does those from Intel ( INTC ).

He also invested in Nuvia, which Qualcomm ( QCOM ) bought

for $1.4 billion in 2021, making it a central part of its push

to compete with Intel ( INTC ) in the laptop and PC chip markets.

Tan remains actively involved with startups that could either

become competitors or acquisition targets for Intel ( INTC ).

For example, earlier this week he invested in AI photonic

startup Celestial AI, which is backed by Intel ( INTC ) rival Advanced

Micro Devices ( AMD ).

Both as an investor and CEO, Tan was early to recognize a

major trend that has swept the chip industry over the past 30

years - that designing chips and manufacturing them would split

into two different specialties.

Tan from 2009 to 2021 was CEO of Cadence Design Systems ( CDNS )

, a chip design software firm whose fortunes he revived.

Tan focused Cadence around supplying the software for

sophisticated designs and partnered closely with Taiwan

Semiconductor Manufacturing Co ( TSM ), which from its

founding days swore it would focus only on manufacturing.

Over Tan's time at Cadence, the firm's stock appreciated

3,200% and it landed Apple ( AAPL ) as one of its largest

customers as the iPhone maker shifted away from suppliers such

as Intel ( INTC ) and toward its own chips.

Cadence's tools also became central to chip industry firms

such as Broadcom ( AVGO ), which helps Google, Amazon ( AMZN )

and others design their own AI chips and have them made by TSMC.

"He did a really good job of pointing (Cadence) in the right

direction," said Karl Freund, analyst with Cambrian AI Research.

"Cadence really aligned themselves with TSMC - they saw them as

a leader and the go-to shop."