Nvidia is throwing Intel a $5 billion life raft, just weeks after similar stakes from the US government and SoftBank. Nvidia is investing $5 billion in Intel common stock in a collaboration that will see the pair “jointly develop multiple generations of custom data center and PC products.”
Nvidia says Intel will help build “x86 system-on-chips (SoCs) that integrate Nvidia RTX GPU chiplets.” These chips will power a “wide range” of PCs, by closely integrating Intel’s CPUs with Nvidia’s GPUs. Intel and Nvidia already have a close partnership on many gaming laptops, but combining both on a single SoC is a big step further.
Nvidia’s investment in Intel comes after the chipmaker has reportedly been working with MediaTek to develop an accelerated processing unit (APU) that combines an Arm-powered CPU with Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU architecture. Nvidia has been rumored to be working on Arm-based laptop chips for years, and a recent report suggested Nvidia’s Arm-powered gaming laptop could launch later this year with Alienware.
Nvidia and Intel will also work together on connecting both their architectures via Nvidia’s NVLink communications link system that’s used in data centers to link GPUs together. “Intel will build Nvidia-custom x86 CPUs that Nvidia will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms and offer to the market,” says Nvidia.
“This 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,” says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. “Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”
Intel’s stock price jumped 28 percent in pre-market trading after Nvidia’s announcement.