Competition Heats Up: Intel to Manufacture Chips for AMD, NVIDIA
On February 21, 2024, Intel hosted the IFS Direct Connect event, during which CEO Pat Gelsinger responded to an inquiry from Tom’s Hardware in the Q&A session, reaffirming Intel’s openness to fabricate chips for anyone, including competitors like AMD and NVIDIA.
Pat Gelsinger aspires to elevate Intel’s foundry services to become the preeminent foundry business, competing directly with TSMC in terms of technology and capacity while maintaining a clear distinction between Intel’s products and its foundry services. Indeed, later this year, Intel’s foundry operations will legally separate from Intel to become an independent entity, to serve a global clientele.
Gelsinger believes that the only way for Intel’s foundry services to compete with TSMC is by offering clients the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing technologies and innovative 3D packaging solutions, not just for its products. This means that chips produced by Intel’s foundry could directly compete with Intel’s products. For Intel’s foundry to further develop, it must avoid selective and discriminatory practices towards clients and instead open its doors wide to collaborate with everyone in the industry.
In addition to making cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing technologies available to third parties, Intel’s foundry’s medium-term goal is to enter the semi-custom market. Under Gelsinger’s vision, Intel’s foundry could provide clients with semi-custom chips that blend various IPs, such as Intel compute modules with IA cores integrated with NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics modules.
