AMD appoints Raja Koduri head of Radeon Graphics Group

AMD has announced that it is bundling its disparate graphics efforts into a single division, dubbed the Radeon Technologies Group, under freshly-promoted senior vice president and chief architect Raja Koduri.

Acquired by CPU specialist AMD back in 2006 for $5.4 billion, GPU maker ATI was rapidly absorbed by its new parent and found its technologies spread throughout the company. Rebranded simply as AMD, ATI's technologies can be found in embedded, consumer, enthusiast, and even server and high-performance computing products. This, however, has given the fiscally-challenged AMD a fresh issue: how to regain the focus the company once enjoyed as a separate entity.

AMD's solution: to bring the graphics division back under a single leader, Raja Koduri. The newly-formed Radeon Technologies Group will handle every aspect of graphics and GPGPU computing at the firm, with the 47 year old executive at the helm. It's far from Koduri's first rodeo: he has previously overseen the development of the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) technology found in AMD's latest graphics products, and has been leading the company's LiquidVR initiative. Prior to rejoining AMD, Koduri worked as director of graphics architecture at Apple, and before that he was at ATI pre-acquisition and AMD post-acquisition.

'AMD is one of the few companies with the engineering talent and IP to make emerging immersive computing opportunities a reality,' crowed Koduri of the company that has just given him a hefty promotion. 'Now, with the Radeon Technologies Group, we have a dedicated team focused on growing our business as we create a unique environment for the best and brightest minds in graphics to be a part of the team re-defining the industry.'

'We are entering an age of immersive computing where we will be surrounded by billions of brilliant pixels that enhance our daily lives in ways we have yet to fully comprehend,' added Lisa Su, president and chief executive of AMD. 'AMD is well positioned to lead this transition with graphics IP that powers the best gaming and visual computing experiences today. With the creation of the Radeon Technologies Group we are putting in place a more agile, vertically-integrated graphics organization focused on solidifying our position as the graphics industry leader, recapturing profitable share across traditional graphics markets, and staking leadership positions in new markets such as virtual and augmented reality.'

The organising of the graphics division into a distinct entity is, however, likely to refresh rumours of a split that would see AMD spin off the Radeon Technologies Group - possibly even regaining its former name of ATI - in order to stem its growing losses. AMD has not, however, publicly commented on the likelihood of such a move.