Honestly, we had to reread the press releases several times to be sure we weren’t dealing with a good old-fashioned hoax. But it’s indeed an official from NVIDIA. The two US companies today announced a collaboration to jointly develop several generations of custom products for data centers and PCs that accelerate applications and workloads in the hyperscale, enterprise and consumer markets.
The two companies will focus on seamlessly connecting NVIDIA and Intel architectures using NVIDIA NVLink, integrating NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing strengths with Intel’s leading CPU technologies and x86 ecosystem to deliver cutting-edge solutions to customers. For data centers, Intel will build custom x86 processors by NVIDIA that NVIDIA will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms and offer to the market.
An Intel x86 / RTX SoC: can you believe it?
For personal computers, Intel will design and market x86 System-on-Chips (SOCs) integrating NVIDIA RTX GPU chips. These new x86 RTX SOCs will equip a wide range of PCs requiring the integration of state-of-the-art processors and GPUs. Is this a reaction to the delays of NVIDIA’s ARM Windows SoC and AMD’s pressure in gaming? NVIDIA will invest $5 billion in Intel common stock, at a purchase price of $23.28 per share. The investment is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasized that the combination of x86 and AI platforms lays the foundations for a “new era of computing”. For Intel, this collaboration is an opportunity to compete more effectively with AMD in the PC market and to better position itself in the server market, where NVIDIA’s dominance has been unchallenged until now. Objectively speaking, it’s also a strange change of direction, given that team green were betting heavily on ARM. Since the announcement, Intel’s share price has risen sharply. If we allow ourselves to speculate a little, this announcement can’t make AMD and TSMC particularly happy…
