13 things about Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan

Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is a Malaysian-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and business executive born in Muar, Johor, Malaysia. His mother was a teacher while his father served as the chief editor of the Malaysian Chinese daily newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau.

BIOGRAPHY

Raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Singapore, Tan earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Nanyang University in Singapore. He earned his master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States and his master’s degree in business administration from the University of San Francisco in San Francisco, California, USA.

Since the 1990s, Tan has been an elder at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley in Berkeley, California. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. In 1978, he graduated from Nanyang Univesity.
2. In 1981, he graduated from MIT.
3. In 1987, he founded the venture capital firm Walden International in San Francisco.
4. On February 10, 2004, he was elected to the board of directors of Cadence Design Systems in San Jose, California.
5. He was a trustee of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore from 2006 to 2011 and he served on the board of governors of Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from 2006 to 2012 and on the board of trustees of New College Berkeley in Berkeley from 2006 to 2013.
6. In October 2008, he became an interim co-chief executive officer of Cadence Design Systems.
7. On January 8, 2009, he became the Cadence Design Systems CEO and president.
8. In 2016, he received the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award from the Global Semiconductor Alliance.
9. On November 16, 2017, he dropped the title of Cadence Design Systems president but stayed as the company’s CEO.
10. In November 2019, he and Cadence Design Systems endowed two computer science professorships at Carnegie Mellon University for US$3 million.
11. From 2022 to 2024, he was a member of the board of Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, California.
12. On November 12, 2024, he turned 65.
13. In 2025, he became the Intel CEO.

TIMELINE

Tan and his wife Ysa Loo, a former banker, are residents of Piedmont, California. Their sons Andrew Tan and Elliott Tan hold master’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

2022

• In August 2022, he received the Semiconductor Industry Association’s highest honor Robert N. Noyce Award.

2023

• On May 11, 2023, he stepped down from the office of executive chairman of Cadence Design Systems.

2024

• In June 2024, he pledged a gift of S$3 million to NTU to set up a new professorship in artificial intelligence, attract talents and support the advancement of research and education at the university’s College of Computing and Data Science.
• In November 2024, he and his Walden International associates committed an investment of S$5 million to kickstart the firm and NTU’s Nanyang Frontier Fund.

2025

• On March 12, 2025, he was named the Intel CEO effective March 18, 2025.
• On April 29, 2025, he said he was “committed to making Intel a leader in semiconductors” when he delivered a speech during the Intel Foundry Direct Connect Conference 2025 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose.