No Innovation Without a Market: Ahmad Bahai on TI’s R&D Model

Semiconductor development cycles run a decade or longer, but markets shift faster than any company can predict. Ahmad Bahai, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Texas Instruments, explains how TI navigates that gap by betting on directional technology vectors rather than specific end markets. TI’s high-voltage program, started over a decade ago with smart grid in mind, eventually served electric vehicles and then became core infrastructure for AI data centers. In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Ahmad Bahai, SVP and CTO at Texas Instruments, about long-horizon R&D, the power delivery bottleneck in AI infrastructure, and why transistor scaling is now one of several co-equal innovation vectors. Bahai also reflects on the Bell Labs model, TI’s $60B-plus US fab expansion, and the case for a “virtual Bell Labs” that bridges academic curiosity and commercial urgency.

Key Highlights:

• Why TI embeds Kilby Labs researchers inside business units from the start, so innovations never expire on a shelf
• How TI’s high-voltage program moved from smart grid to EV to AI data centers without changing the underlying technology platform
• Why stepping voltage from 400V at the rack down to sub-1V at the processor is the overlooked bottleneck in AI infrastructure
• Why transistor scaling is now one innovation vector among several, with materials and packaging becoming co-equal drivers
• Why building fabs during a market trough is the only way to have capacity ready when the next peak arrives