Nikhil Jayaram

Nikhil Jayaram is vice president and CTO for the Network Platforms Group in the Data Center Group at Intel Corporation. His responsibilities include setting technology, architecture and roadmap direction for the networking market and leading an architecture group to drive innovation in the segment. Jayaram helps with Intel’s software-defined networking and network functions virtualization strategy and ensures Intel architecture and the company’s broader portfolio of silicon, software and platform solutions enable this industry transformation. Before joining Intel, Jayaram served as vice president at Cisco, where he managed the Silicon Engineering Group. In this role, he led the development of silicon products and technology for use in switching, routing, server and cable market segments. Jayaram joined Cisco via the Procket Networks acquisition. In addition to network infrastructure, Jayaram has worked on processors, I/O, compression and graphics hardware. Jayaram began his career at Digital Equipment Corporation. He then worked at Apple before moving on to several startups. Jayaram received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from North Dakota State University and his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.