After locking in a $5 billion investment from Nvidia and another $2 billion from SoftBank, Intel reportedly wants Apple as its next major backer.
Apple was once a long-time customer of Intel. However, it eventually shifted to its own in-house chips after Intel failed to innovate quickly enough.
Intel begs Apple for money
Intel once dominated the CPU market, but the last decade tells a different story. It has struggled to deliver meaningful breakthroughs in computing performance, while smaller rival AMD has surged ahead in both power and efficiency. As a result, longtime partners and vendors have begun looking elsewhere, frustrated by Intel’s stagnation.
All this has affected Intel’s bottom line, forcing the company to reduce its spending significantly. Earlier this year, it cut 15% of its workforce to save money. Even the US government picked up a 10% stake in the chipmaker last month. Now, fresh after securing a $5 billion investment from Nvidia, Intel is further seeking investments from Apple.
As Bloomberg reports, both companies are in the early stages of negotiations, with Apple not committing to any investment yet. They have also discussed how they can work more closely together.
Given the strained history between the two companies, it would be interesting to see if Apple makes any investment commitment to Intel. And even if it does, there’s no chance the company could go back to using Intel chips in its devices.
Intel needs more than money to survive
Apple executives previously explained in detail why they moved away from Intel to Apple silicon for their products. The decision paid off, with Apple Silicon Macs setting a new benchmark in performance and efficiency.
Intel CPUs, meanwhile, have failed to keep pace with the rapid progress of Apple’s chips. They are often criticized for excessive power consumption and underwhelming year-over-year performance improvements. This widening gap has only reinforced Apple’s decision to cut ties and chart its own silicon roadmap.
Beyond CPUs, Intel also supplied Apple with baseband chips for iPhones. However, its failure to deliver a 5G modem on schedule forced Apple to strike a multi-year licensing deal with Qualcomm instead after settling a legal dispute. Following this failure, Intel sold off its modem business to Apple for $1 billion and exited the baseband market entirely.
Even if Intel lands an investment from Apple, it won’t be enough to end its troubles. What the company needs is to spend that money wisely and get back to innovating.