One of Microsoft’s top silicon engineering executives—who helped launch its new Azure Cobalt processors and Azure Maia AI accelerators—has joined rival Google Cloud to lead its silicon chip technology innovation.

Microsoft’s former vice president of silicon manufacturing and engineering, Rehan Sheikh, has left to join rival Google Cloud to become one of the company’s leading silicon chip leaders.

At Microsoft, Sheikh (pictured) led efforts to launch Microsoft’s new Azure Cobalt processor and new Azure Maia 100 custom AI accelerator. Sheikh is a longtime silicon chip technologist with an IT career that includes a 24-year stint at Intel where he was responsible for leading silicon engineering and productization.

He was hired last month as vice president of global silicon chip technology and manufacturing at Google Cloud.

“I am super excited to start this journey and contribute to Google Cloud growth,” said Sheikh in a recent LinkedIn post, which has garnered over 200 comments. “I look forward to working with many talented engineers and leaders at Google, and with the industry ecosystem experts.”

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The executive move comes as Google, Microsoft and other technology leaders pour their investment dollars and R&D into making homegrown processors due to high demand for artificial intelligence hardware from customers across the globe.

Google has invested millions in creating AI-specific chips such as its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and Arm-based Axion CPUs for cloud customers. Google’s sixth-generation and most powerful TPU, Trillium, became generally available in December.

Also in December, Google unveiled a new quantum chip, Willow, which Google said can outperform the world’s best supercomputers.

Former Microsoft, Intel Silicon Roles

Sheikh spent the majority of his IT career at Intel from 1997 until 2021.

At Intel, he was responsible for leading silicon engineering and productization as Intel’s chief test and silicon engineering technologist. Sheikh led product segments that included 5G data centers, discrete graphics and Atom-based system-on-a-chip processors.

In 2021, he left to join Microsoft to become the general manager of the company’s technology and product manufacturing engineering, where he led companywide silicon development efforts in many areas, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In 2023, Sheikh was promoted to vice president of silicon manufacturing and packaging engineering at Microsoft.

“The last 4 years [at Microsoft] have been the most rewarding and fulfilling of my long Silicon engineering career,” Sheikh wrote on LinkedIn in December. “Collectively with my peers we launched Maia 100 and Cobalt 100.”

The Azure Cobalt 100 processor is an Arm-based chip aimed to enhance power and performance efficiency for a broad range of workloads.

Microsoft’s first-generation custom AI accelerator, the Azure Maia 100, was designed specifically for large-scale AI workloads deployed in Azure.

He could not be reached for comment by press time.