Episode 7
Beyond Silicon: The Trust That Powers AWS x Intel
With Mike Mariani
What happens when custom silicon meets shared innovation? Real business impact.
In this episode of REWIRED, host Akanksha Bilani joins Mike Mariani, Vice President and Global Account Leader of Amazon at Intel, to take you inside the partnership reshaping what’s possible. Mariani shares how Intel and AWS have built a new kind of collaboration, one rooted in trust, co-engineering, and silicon features designed exclusively for Amazon.
Together they explore how Intel’s newest custom gen hardware, joint go-to-market strategy, and deep engineering alignment are fueling real wins: from performance tailored to Amazon’s needs, to AI-ready infrastructure, to capabilities no other cloud provider offers today.
A candid look at how the Intel–AWS partnership is enabling customers and partners to succeed alongside both companies, and creating shared value across the entire ecosystem.
REWIRED Ep 7 Podcast Transcript
Akanksha Bilani (Host):
Welcome to Rewired, a podcast that shares the coolest stories of innovation and behind the scenes breakthroughs from Intel, AWS, and our favorite partners.
I'm your host, Akanksha Bilani. I run the go-to-market team for Team Amazon at Intel. Our job and our goal and our mission is to help bridge the path with AWS partners and customers.
This session is super exciting for me because I have the privilege of inviting my boss into this discussion for us to talk about what Team AWS at Intel are driving for the industry today.
It's my privilege to speak to Mike Mariani, or if you know him, he likes to go by Mariani, the Vice President and Global Account Leader for Team Amazon at Intel. Mariani, thank you so much for being here.
Mike Mariani:
My pleasure, and even if you don't know me out there, it's still Mariani. Even my wife calls me that. So just make it easy.
Akanksha Bilani:
Absolutely. So, Mariani, you see a lot of cool things happening in our work right now. Can you tell us a little bit about your role, about what Team AWS at Intel does, and what's the most exciting project you've been working on lately?
Mike Mariani:
There's a lot of exciting stuff that we're working on, but I think what is most exciting to me right now is really developing a sales motion with AWS sellers. That motion has been pretty well defined as part of the hardware resell go to market, but not really in the cloud.
And so I'm really excited that we're for the first time putting together a strategy and a list of accounts to go out together alongside AWS and espouse the values of Intel, of AWS, and of cloud technology.
So that's the most exciting to me. I think we're in really deep right now with AWS. They've opened the door and have leaned in with a lot of trust, and now we just got to go make some business happen.
Akanksha Bilani:
Love it, love it. And since we have been working with multiple customers and multiple teams within AWS, tell me something you are really proud of that you or your team have been driving right now.
Mike Mariani:
What I'm most proud of is how our team has been very scrappy and continue to push forward both the relationship, the business, and the trust that we have with Amazon.
And I think specifically, we had a really nice turning point when we announced this partnership agreement that we did back in September, and I believe that in and of itself was an incredible foundation that we use to build additional things on like this co-selling thing I talked about just recently.
The partnership agreement was special to me because we agreed in return for five billion dollars of revenue, Amazon committed, “hey, we'll do business with you guys over the next five years in excess of five billion dollars if you come with extra technology and silicon innovation.”
So we agreed to do some custom products with them from our Xeon line. We agreed to work with them specifically to manufacture some of their AI fabric and networking fabrics on Intel technology. So it was really exciting to kind of piece all of these things together into one big package.
Akanksha Bilani:
I think the impact of this is really about how through performance of our silicon, we're really creating trailblazing partnerships that are impacting the industry today.
Do you want to talk a little bit about the journey that Intel and AWS have taken to bring in this custom technology, even for today's cloud users and cloud customers that's built and powered by our data center strategy and our products?
Mike Mariani:
So Xeon 6, inside of AWS, marks the second step in this custom relationship where we are developing technology specifically for Amazon.
And when I say it's specifically for Amazon, it's also exclusive to Amazon. Several generations prior, we were always struggling at the engineering level to partner up. For one reason, Intel felt like if we gave any of the insights of some of our technology direction or our roadmap, Amazon is a very nimble company, they could just take the good ideas and execute faster than us.
And then on the flip side, Amazon's feedback to us was, well, we don't really want to tell you what we need, and what's important for us to develop, because then you're just going to give it to everybody else, and we're going to lose that differentiation that we wanted.
And so what came out of that was this engineering relationship where they would give feedback on features that they liked and and wanted. And we would agree on some set of features that would be exclusive just for Amazon. Like I said, Xeon 6 is the second instantiation of that relationship, and Amazon leaning in and us proving to them that not only can we listen and be trusted, but we can also execute. And that's what we've done with Xeon 6, and I feel really excited about eighth generation instances because they are truly bringing something that is not present in any other cloud provider out there. So kudos to the trust that we've built, that your team has built with the customer, and the rest is making it happen.
The journey starts at general availability, and so many times people think that we're just trying to get there. Now we have a three to five year journey of making it successful for Amazon.
Akanksha Bilani:
Absolutely. It's something that I know that our teams need to be super proud of. It also is a strong testament to your point on the trust AWS bestows on partnerships that they're committed to. And it also is a testament to the trust we have with the ecosystem of really being able to experience the power of this joint technology,
With Gen AI kind of built into our CPU technology that's powering AWS today, it's really helping transform the way in which customers and AWS leaders today are looking at Gen.AI not only from a GPU perspective, but also the power of CPU in a GPU to drive that data strategy, to drive that innovation and that cost effectiveness that we are seeing today as we work with our customers on their AWS Gen.AI journeys.
So it's been pretty exciting, and thank you so much for your fearless leadership that's kept us moving forward as we keep trying to do more things that are important to our customers today.
Mike Mariani:
It's been my honor. I think we were in a very different place back in 2023, and I think that's what you're seeing now with the relationship we built with Amazon is Intel leaning in and answering the customer needs and then executing on it.
Akanksha Bilani:
Absolutely. Okay, boss, confessional time. We're all buzzing with the advent of AI and Cloud. What is the most unhinged thing you've done using Gen AI for work or at home?
Mike Mariani:
For work, actually Gen AI has become a real productive tool for me, especially around creativity in the creative space. So I've leaned into Gen AI, especially when putting together presentations. You've seen it. One of my favorite things to do is to think about the accomplishments that the team has done. As we go out to give awards, I'm really big into comic books, and so I like to recreate old 90s themed comic panels according to the recognition that we're giving. If it was a team of five people that were able to put together some big giant project, I've used generative AI to come up with countless images of a team of scientists building a gigantic robot or fighting off an onslaught of aliens to protect the rest of the company.
I think that's probably the most wacky use I've had of gen AI at work, and then probably for my personal life, most recently, I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving. I have a very colorful family. We all have different viewpoints. I use it to come up with table topics that are exciting, meaningful, and politically inert so that we can have a safe discussion there and not blow up like we typically do in other holiday dinners.
Akanksha Bilani:
I love it. On that same topic, what are your outlandish predictions of where the future of our industry is going?
Mike Mariani:
I believe within less than five years, probably three years, I think we're going to see a huge market crash. I think AI has been completely overhyped, it's just at a very overheated pace right now, and it can't keep up. But just kind of like when I joined Intel back in 2000, it was the height of the dot-com bubble. The internet was on fire, and then as soon as I got to Intel, immediately things popped and companies went down the tubes. But the technology itself is sound and will be life-changing, just like the internet will be.
I just think it will consolidate down to a very small number of winners, very similar to the way the internet worked out. So it'll be interesting to see who lives and survives this. I also think it's very interesting to see certain companies that were almost not even on the board 20 years ago, now being some of the most valuable companies in the world. I mean, look where Nvidia has gone. Look at OpenAI and Meta.
You know, long standing blue chips like Intel, we really need to figure out how to continue to support the industries as they change. And I'm a huge fan of change and I'm glad to be here to help drive those changes.
Akanksha Bilani:
Amazing. I'm excited to look forward to that future with you, boss. Well, audience, that wraps up our show today. You've been listening to Rewired, the podcast celebrating innovation on the bleeding edge, brought to you by Intel and AWS.
Check out our show notes on Rewired page at www.rewired-podcast.com or wherever you listen to podcasts for links to learn more about what we discussed today.
I'm your host, Akanksha Bilani. I want to give a massive thank you to Mike Mariani for being here and sharing these awesome stories and vision with us.
Mariani, thank you so much for coming.
Mike Mariani:
My pleasure.
