Intel’s incoming CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered significant changes to its chip manufacturing methods and artificial intelligence strategies ahead of his return to the company on Tuesday, two people familiar with Tan’s thinking told Reuters, in a sweeping bid to revive the ailing technology giant. The new trajectory includes restructuring the company’s approach to AI and staff cuts to address what Tan views as a slow-moving and bloated middle management layer. Revamping the company’s manufacturing operations, which at one time only made chips for Intel but have been repurposed to make semiconductors for outside clients such as Nvidia, is one of Tan’s core priorities, these sources said. Intel shares rose more than 7% at the open on Nasdaq after the Reuters report. At a town hall meeting following his appointment as CEO last week, he told employees that the company will need to make “tough decisions,” according to two other people briefed on the meeting. Semiconductor industry expert Dylan Patel said a big problem under former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who left the company in December, was that he was “too nice.” “He did not want to fire a bunch of middle management in the way they needed to,” he said.

Full exclusive : Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has considered restructuring Intel’s AI approach and cutting staff to address a slow and bloated middle management layer.