The new funds for Intel come after the US government agreed in August to take a roughly 10% stake in and President Donald Trump took on the role of pitchman. Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, which has committed to invest tens of billions into US chipmaking and cloud infrastructure, made a surprise US$2 billion investment last month and Intel is also raising cash by selling assets to investors. Its current operations, hit by market share losses, cannot shoulder the burden of intensive spending associated with trying to build leading-edge semiconductors.
Nvidia Corp agreed to invest US$5 billion in Intel Corp and said the two will co-develop chips for PCs and data centres, a surprise move to help prop up an ailing archrival that sent Intel shares soaring.
Nvidia will buy Intel common stock at US$23.28 per share, the two companies said on Thursday. Intel will use Nvidia’s graphics technology in upcoming PC chips and also provide its processors for data centre products built around Nvidia hardware. The two companies didn’t offer a timeline for when the first parts will go on sale and said the announcement doesn’t affect their individual future plans.
