Intel and Nvidia to Jointly Develop AI Infrastructure and Personal Computing Products

Summary:

Intel to design and manufacture custom data center and client CPUs with Nvidia NVLink
Nvidia to invest $5 billion in Intel common stock

Nvidia Corp. and Intel Corp. announced a collaboration to jointly develop multiple generations of custom datacenter and PC products that accelerate applications and workloads across hyperscale, enterprise and consumer markets. Nvidia Intel Logos The companies will focus on seamlessly connecting Nvidia and Intel architectures using Nvidia NVLink – integrating the strengths of Nvidia’s AI and accelerated computing with Intel’s leading CPU technologies and x86 ecosystem to deliver cutting-edge solutions for customers.

For data centers, Intel will build Nvidia-custom x86 CPUs that Nvidia will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms and offer to the market.

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.

Nvidia will invest $5 billion in Intel’s common stock at a purchase price of $23.28 per share. The investment is subject to customary closing conditions, including required regulatory approvals.

“AI is powering a new industrial revolution and reinventing every layer of the computing stack – from silicon to systems to software. At the heart of this reinvention is Nvidia’s CUDA architecture,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO, Nvidia. “This historic collaboration tightly couples Nvidia’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem – a fusion of two world-class platforms. Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”

“Intel’s x86 architecture has been foundational to modern computing for decades – and we are innovating across our portfolio to enable the workloads of the future,” said Lip-Bu Tan, CEO, Intel. “Intel’s leading data center and client computing platforms, combined with our process technology, manufacturing and advanced packaging capabilities, will complement Nvidia’s AI and accelerated computing leadership to enable new breakthroughs for the industry. We appreciate the confidence Jensen and the Nvidia team have placed in us with their investment and look forward to the work ahead as we innovate for customers and grow our business.”

Comments

This press release is not very long, is it a sign of urgency?

Intel is in a very difficult period following some hesitations and clearly bad strategic decisions and choices. It is not new as the semiconductor giant didn't anticipate some waves such AI and at the same time, AMD improved seriously its product line with new CPU generation and server oriented products and Nvidia became the giant we all know delivering last quarter almost $47 billion of revenue.

As said, it is not a surprise as it is on every lips for several years now and recent news confirmed the negative trend. At the same time, Intel is strategic being a huge technology player for decades serving as a real leader, model or even reference in the domain. In other words, the USA as a country and the current administration, even the previous one, can't let Intel disappear or stay in this bad position especially with current talks with China and others. The recent US government effort and SoftBank investment marked a sign and this current one from Nvidia is also very significant with $5 billion in Intel common stock at a purchase price of $23.28 per share. It represents approximately 4% of Intel capital and SoftBank 2%.

This deal illustrates also a collaboration for data center and PC markets. On the data center side, it focuses on NVLink interconnect to bridge Intel CPUs and NVidia AI accelerators. And details are important, it is officially mentioned that "for data centers, Intel will build Nvidia-custom x86 CPUs that Nvidia will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms and offer to the market."

And even the second part of the announcement confirms that each player stays in its own garden, Intel for CPUs and Nvidia for GPUs.

We'll see where it goes...so far the Intel stock reacts pretty well.