Friday, November 1st 2024
Apple and Samsung in the Fray to Acquire Intel: Rumor
Apple and Samsung are reportedly in the fray to acquire Intel, according a spectacular rumor cited by Moore's Law is Dead. This would put the list of companies looking to acquire Intel at 3—Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm. All three are Arm licensees, with unique characteristics. Apple currently has an Arm-based SoC hardware division that makes custom chips for all its devices, including Macs. Samsung would go on to be an overseas parent company for an American heritage company like Intel, but something like this is not unheard of when you consider examples such as Boston Dynamics being acquired by Hyundai Motors, or Westinghouse Nuclear's acquisition by Japan's Toshiba, before changing hands to Canadian Bookfield Partners. Then there's Qualcomm—the American company is having a bit of a falling out with Arm, and the prospect of owning the x86 IP should be tempting.
Intel retains large amounts of market-share in both the PC processor and server processor markets, however, the company's stock price has been on a downward trend for several quarters now, causing its valuation to drop to levels where any of the other big tech companies can afford to buy it out. The company spent close to $10 billion on a GPU architecture project spanning not just a contemporary graphics architecture to power the integrated graphics solutions of its PC processors, but also discrete gaming GPUs; and most importantly, an AI GPU architecture under the "Ponte Vecchio" project. Intel's Xe-HP AI GPU missed its performance targets or was too late to the market, leaving Intel with a gaping hole that it could only fill with a slew of cost-cutting measures. It doesn't help that Intel Foundry is losing its edge, and none of the logic tiles of Core Ultra "Arrow Lake" processor is made on an Intel foundry node.
Sources:
Moore's Law is Dead (YouTube), Tom's Guide
Intel retains large amounts of market-share in both the PC processor and server processor markets, however, the company's stock price has been on a downward trend for several quarters now, causing its valuation to drop to levels where any of the other big tech companies can afford to buy it out. The company spent close to $10 billion on a GPU architecture project spanning not just a contemporary graphics architecture to power the integrated graphics solutions of its PC processors, but also discrete gaming GPUs; and most importantly, an AI GPU architecture under the "Ponte Vecchio" project. Intel's Xe-HP AI GPU missed its performance targets or was too late to the market, leaving Intel with a gaping hole that it could only fill with a slew of cost-cutting measures. It doesn't help that Intel Foundry is losing its edge, and none of the logic tiles of Core Ultra "Arrow Lake" processor is made on an Intel foundry node.
123 Comments on Apple and Samsung in the Fray to Acquire Intel: Rumor
Intel Ponte Vecchio GPU architecture was Never designed as AI capable ( however you could tune it to work with AI models! ) since the design work started well Before an AI-boom started. "AI" term was added recently. Period.
The same applies to Intel Xe-HP GPU architecture and "AI" term was added recently. Period.
Personally, as a C/C++ Software Engineer with a significant experience in GPU programming I'm very negative regarding all these rumours spread by TechPowerUp ( TPU ).
Take into account, TPU is Not a company, is Not a foundation, is Not an organization that reports revenue, incomes, taxes, etc. TPU is a group of geographically separated individuals and many of us do Not know who these individuals are ( just take a look at Contact Us webpage ). TPU makes money from donations, possibly webpage clicks and that is why it spreads all these rumours.
I'm Not against of TPU and as a professional I really like the website since it is one of my sources of information on GPU technologies. I hope that an Editor-In-Chief of TPU will take actions and rumours should Not be spread.
Hey, TPU team, thank you for your work and I like the TPU website anyway.
We do not need to bring past history of wars and nonsense into the discussion or current political beliefs of individuals.
Stick to the topic!
IBM had largely been relegated to the past tense with PowerPC...so when it was sold the thought process was x86-64 was still supported with software by Microsoft and Hardware with Intel and AMD.
Toshiba is a Japanese company. Individual contractors in the nuclear field still exist, and with Japan nearly being a protectorate of the US (at the time) it was reasonable to have their ownership.
Hyundai and South Korea...same story as Japan. Additionally, DARPA could farm out stuff to anyone with a reasonable security clearance.
Lenovo buying out Motorola was...well, let's reasonably chalk that up as wanting cheap hardware from a country that could provide labor at rock bottom prices, with the assumption that their highest technology wasn't being manufactured in China...
The UAE...a country with oil...buying out Seagate...who have plenty of research facilities in the US and lots of bi-lateral agreements for that sweet sweet black gold.
Why is Intel different? Well...night vision goggles, missile control systems, computers, and about a dozen other things need Intel chips. AMD may compete...but mil-spec is a bother to get. Ironically, this is about the strategic needs unlike any of the other stuff. If you go through the above list, the concerns are primarily about having a competing option. There is none for Intel. There's no way to contract out their services, and no friendly country wants to pony up that sort of money.
Of course the two companies that are cited are US based...but the problem with that is that neither of them want the headache of more regulation being up in their business...because an inquiry into Intel branching out into the mobile chip space would be allowing too much discretionary observation of confidential information, but the US would presumably make this a stipulation of any agreed upon purchase.
This is also why an Intel buy-out would be little more than rumors. It'd come with a mile long list of requirements from the FTC, Military, and a dozen other governmental bodies. It'd make anyone wanting to own them have to jump through a thousand regulations to make any changes...and once they did they'd have to find some way to make things profitable. It's infinitely more feasible that Intel would be allowed to shed non-core businesses, and trim management, because based upon reporting they already have shed factory workers. That would be shrinking R&D, losing the GPU division, and removing the investor dividends (which they've already done). Intel's value on the stock market isn't a thing for the government of the US to concern itself with...and their directorship isn't likely to take any responsibility for the last decade of stagnant progress combined with huge amounts of money leaving the company as a one-two punch for executives paid in stock options to get a large chunk of money without it being apparent that their salaries were increasing...while their factory workers bumbled through miserable conditions where their processes sucked. I say they suck because of the yields reported...not as a judgement of anything else.
It seems that moneys talk more than the National interests.
intel lose the advantage in every thing
is so hard to come back now
The Taiwanese own this tech
Still welcome to TPU.
Samsung would definitely want those to get a foothold stateside and put some CHIPS funds towards upgrading one, or resetting their own R&D efforts using Intel IP to try and give them an edge against TSMC and the slow but progressing Japanese rivals. Apple might want to fully own their own fabs, and they can afford to invest a lot of money into R&D for the bleeding edge, even if it's a money loser at the start. There's also the possible twist of Japanese companies aiming to buy into Intel's Fabs if those were put up; it would give them access to the EUV license that the US denied them decades ago and allow them to catch-up.
Anything special has a substitute.