Rani Borkar

Rani Borkar is President of Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure at Microsoft, where she leads the teams responsible for planning, architecting, developing, and deploying the end-to-end hardware and infrastructure that powers Microsoft Azure, from silicon and systems to supply chain and global capacity deployment.

A pioneer in the semiconductor industry, Borkar brings more than 35 years of experience shaping some of the most significant platform shifts in modern computing, including the rise of the PC, mobile computing, multicore processors, and today’s era of cloud and AI. 

At Microsoft, Borkar has been instrumental in strengthening Azure’s position as a leading enterprise cloud platform serving more than 95% of the Fortune 500. As part of that work, she built Microsoft’s first-party silicon portfolio, including Cobalt, Azure’s Arm-based CPU, and the Maia AI accelerator. 

Prior to joining Microsoft, Borkar spent 27 years at Intel, where she served as Corporate Vice President and General Manager in the Product Development Group, leading silicon product strategy for industry-defining processor families including Intel Xeon, Core, Atom, Pentium, and Celeron. She also held senior leadership roles at IBM, including Vice President of OpenPOWER Development. 

She serves on the boards of Applied Materials and the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA). 

Borkar holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of Mumbai, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Oregon Graduate Institute.