Still Needing a Foundry Partner, Intel Looks to Apple...
Ryan Gould
Intel sure seems to have a lot more friends after their de-facto government bail out. No surprise there, especially given this particular government. Suddenly, beyond Treasury's 10% stake, SoftBank has a 2% stake, and NVIDIA now has a roughly 5% stake. The only problem is that none of these partners has yet promised to actually help Intel's struggling foundry business. The thing which will actually save them, long-term (since they clearly won't be able to sell off that business now, thanks to terms in the government's deal). So Intel has to stay on the road with hat stretched out...
Intel has approached Apple about securing an investment in the ailing chipmaker, according to people familiar with the matter, part of efforts to bolster a business that’s now partially owned by the US government.
Apple and Intel also have discussed how to work more closely together, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the deliberations are private. The talks have been early-stage and may not lead to an agreement, the people said.
Look, if there's one company that is going to do whatever it takes to stay in the good graces of the Trump administration... Intel clearly knows what they're doing here. And if they get Apple on board, might that tip Microsoft and all the rest to chip in as well? You know, in the spirit of unity?
A deal with Apple, a longtime Intel customer that switched to in-house processors in the past five years, would represent further validation of the chipmaker’s turnaround bid. Still, it’s unlikely that Apple would switch back to Intel processors in its devices. The iPhone maker’s most sophisticated chips are now produced by partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
I would say it's not just "unlikely" I would say that there is a zero percent chance of that happening. That ship sailed long ago and it was quite literally on fire when it left the harbor because the chips were running so goddamn hot. Again, this (tall) ask here is obviously to convince Apple to use Intel foundry to produce some of their own 'Apple Silicon' chips, not to switch back to x86.
I say "tall" because it also feels unlikely given the tight relationship between Apple and TSMC – with the former often first in line for the newest processes coming out of the latter. But again, maybe if Trump specifically asks Apple, Tim Cook will figure out a way to use Intel to fab some of their chips. Apple has a lot of them these days, beyond just their CPUs. If you squint, you can almost see a world in which Intel helps Apple make their 'C' line of chips, which would be an extra nice narrative since their modem chips were born out of Apple buying Intel's modem business...
Mainly, I just want an image of Tim Cook looming over Lip-Bu Tan at an event to talk about a big investment and partnership...
