NVIDIA to invest $5B in Intel, with joint chip collaboration announced
Together, the tech firms will create customised processors for use in data centres and personal computers.
Tech giant NVIDIA said on Thursday that it will invest $5 billion in Intel as the two companies announced plans to work together on developing several generations of customised products for data centres and personal computers.
NVIDIA, which recently became the first company to exceed a $4 trillion market value after a sharp rise in demand for AI hardware, will purchase Intel’s common stock at $23.28 per share.
“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,” said NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang. “Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”
The two companies plan to connect NVIDIA and Intel technologies through NVIDIA NVLink, combining NVIDIA’s work in AI and accelerated computing with Intel’s CPU expertise and its established x86 ecosystem.
In data centres, Intel will produce custom x86 CPUs for NVIDIA, which will then be built into NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure platforms and made available to customers.
In personal computing, Intel will develop and sell x86 system-on-chips (SoCs) that include NVIDIA RTX GPU components. These chips are designed to power a wide range of PCs that require both high-performance CPUs and GPUs.
“Intel’s leading data centre 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,” noted Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel.
The move comes as Intel faces one of the most difficult periods since its founding in 1968 by semiconductor pioneers Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, with growing pressure from competitors such as AMD and NVIDIA.
Intel, which created the world’s first commercially available microprocessor, the Intel 4004, in 1971, went on to establish its x86 architecture as the standard for personal computers. Its “Intel Inside” campaign in the 1990s made the brand widely recognised. Today, the company is working to re-establish its position in the semiconductor manufacturing industry.
Last month, the US government took a 9.9% stake in Intel by converting federal grants into non-voting shares, a step aimed at strengthening domestic semiconductor production.
Intel has faced major setbacks, including the departure of CEO Pat Gelsinger in December 2024. His successor, Tan, has begun a large-scale restructuring that includes thousands of job cuts.
“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,” Tan remarked in the joint statement.
NVIDIA recently announced plans to invest in the UK’s AI infrastructure in partnership with companies such as CoreWeave, Microsoft and Nscale.
They are expanding AI data centres in the UK with up to 120,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and an investment of up to £11 billion, described as the country’s largest AI rollout to date and supporting projects such as OpenAI’s Stargate UK.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan