This has been an interesting 1.5 months for Intel on all fronts. I wonder how long this deal was in the making, since the timing is impeccable, looking at the current administration's involvement with Intel.
> It is unclear if Intel will issue new stock for Nvidia to purchase
Erm, a rather important point to bury down the story. The fiest question on anyone’s lips will be is this $5bn to build new chip technology, or $5bn for employees to spend on yachts?
nVidia has also been licensing their GPU IP to MediaTek recently, who are working on a 2nd generation of a SoC that combines their ARM cores with nVidia GPUs now, catering to e.g. the automotive market.
Looks like using GPU IP to take over other brands' product lines is now officially an nVidia strategy.
I guess the obvious worry here is whether Intel will continue development of their own dGPUs, which have a lovely open driver stack.
> Nvidia will also have Intel build custom x86 data center CPUs for its AI products for hyperscale and enterprise customers.
Hell has frozen over at Intel. Actually listening to people that want to buy your stuff, whatever next? Presumably someone over there doesn't want the AI wave to turn into a repeat of their famous success with mobile.
In the event Intel ever do get US based fabrication semi competitive again (and the national security motivation for doing so is intense) nVidia will likely have to be a major customer, so this does make sense. I remain doubtful that Intel can pull it off, and it will have to come from someone else.
Spot on about the AI/mobile parallel. Intel sat out the smartphone wave while pretending it didn’t matter, and now they’re scrambling not to miss the AI train
Remember when Microsoft invested in Apple when Apple was down in the dumps? This is giving similar vibes. That deal was arguably what saved Apple near its nadir. I’m not a fan of Intel’s past monopolistic practices, but for the sake of sustaining competition in the CPU/GPU market, I hope this deal works out for them even half as well as the MS deal did for Apple.
That Microsoft-Apple deal was part lifeline, part strategic insurance. Intel clearly needs a win, and Nvidia needs more control over its ecosystem without being chained to TSMC forever
Nowadays I always wonder to what extent such deals are actually driven by market considerations and to what extent it's catering to the Trump administration. Token investments into this state enterprise named Intel seems to be a practical way to cater goodwill with the autocrats.
> For personal computing, Intel will build and offer to the market x86 system-on-chips (SOCs) that integrate NVIDIA RTX GPU chiplets. These new x86 RTX SOCs will power a wide range of PCs that demand integration of world-class CPUs and GPUs.
INTC is strategically important company. They won't be allowed to fail. Of course, that doesn't mean the stock is a good investment. During the GFC, all the equity holders were wiped out all the bond holders got all their money back. Figure that one out.
It feels like the end is in sight for dedicated graphics chips in consumer devices. Phones, consoles, and now Apple silicon are proving that SoC designs with unified memory and focused thermals are a winning strategy for efficiency and speed. Nvidia may be happy enough to move the graphics strategy onto an SoC and keep discrete boards just for AI.
Intel is a strategically important company for the United States. This smells like a token investment to appease the US government. Not saying it’s bad, but very much looks like that.
It did cross my mind that it could just be a kind of validation investment, to validate the Trump "investment" in Intel as a smart move (i.e., "see, Nvidia also thinks intel is a good investment), but the announcement did seem a bit contrived for that.
I am also thinking that it may just be more of a "everyone scratching each other's backs." Intel avoids anti-trust/monopoly investigations, Intel is saved for all the institutional and political stakeholders and Nvidia floats an artificial competitor to make them look less like a monopoly, Intel stays alive, etc.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 99.6 ms ] thread[0]: <https://www.fudzilla.com/6882-nvidia-continues-comic-campaig...>
Erm, a rather important point to bury down the story. The fiest question on anyone’s lips will be is this $5bn to build new chip technology, or $5bn for employees to spend on yachts?
Looks like using GPU IP to take over other brands' product lines is now officially an nVidia strategy.
I guess the obvious worry here is whether Intel will continue development of their own dGPUs, which have a lovely open driver stack.
> Nvidia will also have Intel build custom x86 data center CPUs for its AI products for hyperscale and enterprise customers.
Hell has frozen over at Intel. Actually listening to people that want to buy your stuff, whatever next? Presumably someone over there doesn't want the AI wave to turn into a repeat of their famous success with mobile.
In the event Intel ever do get US based fabrication semi competitive again (and the national security motivation for doing so is intense) nVidia will likely have to be a major customer, so this does make sense. I remain doubtful that Intel can pull it off, and it will have to come from someone else.
https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1750/...
What’s old is new again: back in 2017, Intel tried something similar with AMD (Kaby Lake-G). They paired a Kaby Lake CPU with a Vega GPU and HBM, but the product flopped: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-discontinue-kaby-lak...
Not sure if it's flopped, because the only machine with that CPU i could find is the intel nuc.
Let's go back even further.. I get strong nForce vibes from that extract!
https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1748/...
Seems to be an easy bet, if for no other reason than to make the US Government (Trump) happy. Trump gets to tout his +30% return on investment.
I am also thinking that it may just be more of a "everyone scratching each other's backs." Intel avoids anti-trust/monopoly investigations, Intel is saved for all the institutional and political stakeholders and Nvidia floats an artificial competitor to make them look less like a monopoly, Intel stays alive, etc.