Intel reportedly asking ex-flame Apple to invest • The Register
After a painful breakup and a bout of financial turmoil, Intel is looking to rekindle the relationship with its old flame Apple.
The x86 giant reportedly hopes to convince Cupertino to become an investor, unnamed sources told Bloomberg.
The talks come amid a flurry of new investment in Intel, which kicked off in August when Japanese investment bank SoftBank sank $2 billion into the ailing chipmaker.
Less than a week later, the Trump administration was shaking down Intel for roughly $11 billion worth of stock options, equivalent to 10 percent of the company, in exchange for $8.9 billion in CHIPS Act funding Washington had already awarded.
Then last week, Nvidia joined in on the fun, announcing plans to plow $5 billion into Intel shares. As part of the deal, the two companies formed a co-development initiative that would see Nvidia extend its GPU empire by integrating its graphics tech into Intel CPUs. Intel meanwhile secured a place for its Xeon processors in Nvidia’s future rack systems.
The benefit of these deals is fairly straightforward. SoftBank gets to do what it always does and gamble on the chipmaker’s success, domestic chip production is central to American national security policy, and Nvidia gets to put its GPUs in Intel-powered thin-and-light notebooks.
Apple’s motivation for investing Intel aren’t as obvious. Since transitioning to its homegrown M-series silicon in late 2020, Apple has gone from key Intel partner to direct competitor. Many of Intel’s recent products have not been stellar, leading it to lose market share across the server and PC markets in recent years. It’s therefore hard to see CEO Tim Cook giving up on Apple Silicon any time soon.
But rather than selling CPUs to Apple, Intel may be more interested in manufacturing Apple’s next homegrown chip.
More than four years after Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed the company would open its fab to contract manufacturing, it has yet to find a hero customer.
But with American companies under intense pressure from the White House to on-shore manufacturing, Intel could offer Apple an alternative to its current supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC).
The only problem is that TSMC has already filled that need – earlier this year it began manufacturing chips for Apple and Nvidia at its fabs outside Phoenix, Arizona. (In case you forgot, Nvidia’s $5 billion investment in Intel doesn’t include chip production either.)
With that said, Apple’s success relies on its ability to manage supply chains. The opportunity to diversify chip manufacturing sources for the long-term may be attractive enough to justify an investment in Intel now.
Apple has already offered the Trump administration its pound of flesh. In February, Apple said it would invest $500 billion and hire 20,000 workers over the next four years in America to grow its US footprint.
According to the report, Intel’s talks with Apple are still in the early stages, and there is no guarantee the iGiant will help to finance Chipzilla’s rehab.
Intel declined to comment and we’ve yet to hear back from Apple. ®
