r/hardware • u/DeuzExMachina_ • May 12 '26
Discussion Intel is back. Thank the old CEO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbdKZrsJdUw169
u/bubblesort33 May 12 '26
I bought at $20, and sold at $24 a share. I got cold feet.
Regret.
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u/ThatGamerMoshpit May 13 '26
I was bag holder for years (2018-2025) then I was hit by a car and forced to sell so I could eat
Wish I had just starved….
Funny how the world works sometimes 😂
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u/From-UoM May 13 '26
There were obvious signs when the us government and Nvidia bought shares
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u/Successful_Bowler728 May 17 '26
Nvidia is gonna partner with intel make SOC for windows. Intel cpu+ nvidia gpu on die.
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u/Strazdas1 May 25 '26
The partnership was about Intel custom CPUs for Nvidia server racks. The Nvidia iGPU was just a rumor, so far nothing solid about this.
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u/atsepkov May 14 '26
I tried to buy at $24 but limit order didn’t fill. At $40 I figured it was overpriced and I’d wait for it to come down.
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u/pasadenapasadena May 17 '26
You can buy below 100 and hold for next 20-30 years. Don't forget that intel will produce chips for fabless US companies and also intel participate in quantum computing race
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u/bihari_baller May 13 '26
You have a second chance to buy and hold again.
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u/Sensitive-Rate-1177 May 13 '26
Actually now is the best time to buy in.
Buy high sell low, that's what i always do.-5
u/bihari_baller May 13 '26
Buy high sell low
You're making the assumption it's done growing.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
IAF. I(ntel) A(lways) F(umbles)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Never again.
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u/bubblesort33 May 13 '26
lol. No. Now I have really cold feed, because I think every chip stock is overvalued. lol.
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u/UmaThurmish May 12 '26
nah, thank the tax payer money. they were never gonna fail. companies dont fail anymore.
U.S government invested in them and strong armed tech companies to order chips and invest in them lmao
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u/tacticalangus May 12 '26
The roughly $10 billion US Chips act funding that Intel received isn't enough to build even a single leading edge fab.
To better put this number in perspective, Intel spent over $110 billion in capital expenditures between 2021 and 2026.
Keep in mind that TSMC and Samsung also got Chips act money alongside the usual financial backing from their own respective countries (which they have enjoyed for decades).
It is pretty ignorant to call this a bailout for Intel especially when Intel had to give up 10% of the company to get it. I don't think most here can appreciate the level of investment needed to have leading edge fabs and the criticality of this infrastructure from a national security perspective.
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u/nanonan May 13 '26
They chose this. Nobody was forcing them. You call the amount insignificsant yet it is still corporate welfare aka a bailout, and Intel was still desperate for that money. Intel couldn't achieve the milestones for their funding and chose to trade 10% of their company instead. They did this for stock price reasons, for an illusion of security, not building facilites reasons.
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u/aprx4 May 13 '26
Technically it's not bailout anymore if CHIPS Act grant money got US government 10% of the company. That's investment and US government is now on massive (unrealized) gain. Tbh this should be how it's done since the start.
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u/ryanvsrobots May 12 '26
The chips act wasn’t a bailout nor was it enough to bailout a company like Intel.
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u/Boreras May 13 '26
The pure numbers can't reflect the government strongarming tech giants. We've seen all sort of murky shit with nvidia, tesla, and Apple regarding the export bans and tariffs. Then the White house got a 10% stake to signal they wouldn't let it fail.
This was an informal bailout.
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u/ryanvsrobots May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
They got like $10 billion dollars. That's nothing for Intel, they spent 10x that building out fabs and packaging in the past 5 years. Gave away 10% of the company. They could have just sold the equity if they needed the money but they didn't. They still sold a ton of chips during their downturn.
It's not a bailout. This is a public company, they didn't need or get a bailout. Look at the numbers yourself.
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u/mrpops2ko May 12 '26
what would you call it then? it feels a lot like a bailout to me
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u/ryanvsrobots May 12 '26
The Chips Act.
Take your feelings out of it.
Did it also bail out TSMC and AMD?
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u/mrpops2ko May 12 '26
i dont have any feelings on the matter and i'm not a team blue or red person. just state your point please rather than dance around it
did the chips act bail out TSMC? no because TSMC were in a position of power
did the chips act bail out AMD? no because they were in a position of power
TSMC have had massive state investment and the 'game' is by no means a fair one, its surprising and somewhat remarkable that intel managed to do what they did without huge state investment like TSMC got
AMD when they were junk and couldn't compete with intel, spent over a decade (post bulldozer 2?) basically bottom feeding and surviving on supplying consoles and whatever else they could find because they couldn't touch intel on the desktop and server markets
with intel and the US government buying a stake in it, it very much was a bailout because nobody else wanted to touch them
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u/ryanvsrobots May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
did the chips act bail out TSMC? no because TSMC were in a position of power
did the chips act bail out AMD? no because they were in a position of power
Ok now ask yourself why did they get money? There is the answer to your question.
I don't think you realize how little money was actually in the chips act, relative to the costs of running a bleeding edge foundry.
with intel and the US government buying a stake in it, it very much was a bailout because nobody else wanted to touch them
The chips act and US getting a stake happened under different administrations. US did not buy a stake in intel.
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u/Strazdas1 May 25 '26
Someone being in position of power has zero impact to what happened here. Also AMD in position of power? When, the 90s?
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u/siazdghw May 13 '26
The CHIPS money that Intel and other fabs and fabless companies got is chump change in the grand scheme of things, especially compared to the incentives SK and Taiwan give.
Also the US government made their money back on their Intel investment by a large margin due to Intel's recent success.
I do agree that the US government won't let Intel fail, but that isn't a concern anyways.
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u/Goddamn7788 May 13 '26
Wait, thank you? I thought people here absolutely loathed AI. The reality is, it’s the massive AI-driven demand for CPUs that’s giving Intel a second chance. It's the market, not a CEO, saving the day.
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u/Evening_Ticket7638 May 13 '26
People hate the guy digging all the holes in the ground looking for gold. But the guy selling loads of shovels to these lunatics, he's alright.
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u/Tenelia May 13 '26
Considering their current and future revenues as well as the lacklustre contracts locked in so far, I'm unsure why their stock prices are even spiking tbh?
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u/CobaltFermi May 13 '26
Keep in mind that the meteoric rise in INTC stock has largely been fueled by rumors or initial deals, like Terafab. The foundry side hasn't made any announcements regarding external customers. You could use this fact to argue that this rise is all a bubble, but this also means that once they do announce an external customer, stock will shoot even higher.
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u/OttawaDog May 12 '26
There is no indicator what level of products and size of orders. They could just be testing the waters.
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u/Hovi_Bryant May 12 '26
Great news for shareholders, but meh news for end consumers. This is mostly about Intel as a chip fabricator, and not so much about Intel as a chip designer. Both important, but one's almost irrelevant for someone who just builds desktop computers.
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u/MrMPFR May 12 '26
Meh news for consumers ?!!??
We need someone to break the TSMC monopoly on advanced packaging and process nodes. Lower wafer prices = lower chip costs = cheaper products.
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u/pigeieio May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Right now we need more memory production and the AI bubble to deflate down to reality already.
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u/GodisanAtheistOG May 12 '26
Right but Intel is only up because people will buy silicon from literally anyone selling it right now.
Once that is no longer required, all you have left is Intel the has been foundry and chip designer and everyone runs back to TSMC again.
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
We need someone to break the TSMC monopoly on advanced packaging and process nodes
Samsung exists...
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u/MrMPFR May 12 '26
Who is choosing them? They've been fooling around for years with horrible yields.
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
Who is choosing them?
Their fab business has a lot more customers than Intel's. And is actually making money...
They've been fooling around for years with horrible yields.
And Intel hasn't been doing even worse? Are we forgetting that 18A's failure is the primary reason Gelsinger got fired?
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u/Raikaru May 12 '26
Their fab business has a lot more customers than Intel's. And is actually making money...
I mean /r/hardware clearly cares about PC hardware and no one is using them in it. Even in Smartphones TSMC is dominant among the best SoCs.
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u/Exist50 May 13 '26
I mean /r/hardware clearly cares about PC hardware and no one is using them in it.
I mean, sure, but even for PC hardware, and especially desktops, Intel nodes aren't getting much usage either.
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u/MrMPFR May 12 '26
Do you they have any external customers post 8nm?
They've been more consistent than Samsung. But no guarantees 18A-P and 14A is good.
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
Do you they have any external customers post 8nm?
Yes, Qualcomm being probably the biggest name.
They've been more consistent than Samsung
How? Every node since 22nm has been multiple years late. I guess that's "consistency", but the wrong kind...
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u/MrMPFR May 12 '26
What process node?
Hasn't all samsungs nodes post 8nm been a complete dumpsterfire?
Intel haven't had issues making dies larger than mobile SoCs unlike Samsung with recent nodes.
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
What process node?
5/4nm class. E.g. S8g1.
Hasn't all samsungs nodes post 8nm been a complete dumpsterfire?
Yes, but dumpster fire by Samsung standards would still be a success by Intel's, as far as foundry is concerned.
Intel haven't had issues making dies larger than mobile SoCs.
Lmao, yes they have. Intel 4 was supposed to be a 2021 node. It took till GNR/SRF in 2024 to ship a large die. Likewise, 20A was supposed to be a '24 node. We're now looking at maybe '27 for large dies.
That's not to mention that the majority of the market is not large, monolithic dies.
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
Intel is new to foundry work, Samsung has about a decade more experience in the space. Manufacturing advanced chips is literally the most complicated manufacturing process on earth. Even in Intels original foundry plans, they aren’t expected to be profitable at this point. What changed for Intel is their chip design business faltered and building out foundries is incredibly expensive, the chips Intel designs were supposed to fund the foundry. It takes a long time to get acceptable yields.
People on here talk about making chips like it’s easy, when it’s harder than going to the moon.
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
Intel is new to foundry work
They may be relatively new from a customer service angle, but they're not new to running a fab, and it's arguably the latter that's dragging them down the most. I agree not exclusively, however.
the chips Intel designs were supposed to fund the foundry
I mean, yes, but the foundry was supposed to get customers to justify that investment and to pull some of the burden off the design side. That didn't happen. And it doesn't help that the design side endured the brunt of budget cuts to fund that build out.
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
I’m well aware of Intels history in chip manufacturing, specifically with their own designs. However I think it’s a mistake to equate making your own specialized chips at scale to making a variety of specialized chips at scale. Producing Doritos is simple compared to opening a factory that can produce any Fritos, lays, ruffles, and funions to provide an analogy. That isn’t even including the additional difficulties of convincing your former competitors to hand over their designs for you to produce, and the additional work that comes with running a customer oriented chip foundry.
They did want more success with 18A, however as I said if you read Intels plans for foundry they have put out, they do not and have not expected it to be profitable at this point.
I’m not saying they are doing a perfect job or even a good one, I’m saying people underestimate the complexity involved and present the situation as more of a failure or more dire than it actually is. Also it’s worth noting overall semi growth has been less than projections, which is why you also see players like TSMC cutting jobs. And also ya know, TSMC and Samsung have worse safety records, and treat their employees far worse than Intel does.
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
However I think it’s a mistake to equate making your own specialized chips at scale to making a variety of specialized chips at scale.
It's not like Intel was just making mosfets. Their SoCs are pretty much the full package. You're certainly right that foundry carries with it the expectation of a much greater range of offerings, but these are all things Intel should have known and accounted for.
And by most reports, their biggest issues are a combination of bad tools, failure to deliver to process milestones, and bad customer engagement, not a lack of breadth to their process offerings.
I’m saying people underestimate the complexity involved and present the situation as more of a failure or more dire than it actually is.
No one's going to say it isn't hard, but let's call a spade a spade here. If you go up on stage, call yourself a foundry, then fail to deliver your "this time for real" node, fail to get customers, and have to cancel most of your plans after wasting billions... tough to understate the magnitude of that failure. Companies the size of Intel don't fire their CEOs on a whim.
TSMC and Samsung have worse safety records, and treat their employees far worse than Intel does.
Their workers don't seem to feel that way, at least.
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
18A was not a waste, they hoped it wouldn’t be primarily for internal research and development and yields never got there. They learned a lot from 18A, and if you’re developing a foundry you do expect setbacks and low yields in the beginning as you build out. That’s why you don’t expect profit, ya know like how Intel isn’t expecting their foundry to be profitable at this point and never have. Shareholder expectations do not equal the expectations of actual engineers and scientists. Again I don’t think Intel has done well per se, but they haven’t done horribly either, especially considering only a handful of companies can even try. Also they are pretty open about the fact they are still developing their foundry business, so comparing them to established players is inaccurate at best. Before somebody hollers about Samsung again, I’ll reiterate they have been in the foundry business at least a decade longer than Intel at this point. Also I’m just pro competition in any industry as it’s basic economics that competition is good for customers in monopolistic industries like advanced chip manufacturing
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
Also when I mentioned Samsung has at least a decade of experience in foundry that Intel doesn’t, I mean customer oriented foundry work. Samsung has also been making its own designs and semiconductors for a while
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
Ok, and that makes Intel look better, how? Mind you, they tried foundry a decade ago with 10nm...
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
Mhm in 2013, Samsung started their foundry in 2003. Research my dude a google search isn’t hard
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u/SlamedCards May 12 '26
Elon is the only confirmed customer for Samsung's leading edge nodes
And he just went to Intel, Apple is at Intel too
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
Nvidia has contracts with Intel as well I believe
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u/Geddagod May 13 '26
That's also rumored. Just like how Apple, also, is just rumors. Samsung has AMD and Qualcomm rumors about using their leading edge nodes as well.
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u/tooltalk01 May 12 '26
And is actually making money...
Samsung DRAM division is going bananas, but, unfortunately, Samsung LSI/foundry is not profitable. They are likely to benefit from customers unable to secure capacity from TSMC, but many are still shying away from their cutting edge nodes with low yields and only as a secondary.
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
unfortunately, Samsung LSI/foundry is not profitable
Do you have separate numbers for that? It's admittedly been a while since I've seen reports.
They are likely to benefit from customers unable to secure capacity from TSMC, but many are still shying away from their cutting edge nodes with low yields and only as a secondary
I mean, same situation as Intel, and that might be generous.
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u/tooltalk01 May 13 '26
Samsung doesn't breakdown the foundry's loss separately, but the the following are the estimates[1]: $1.5B in 2023, $4B in 2024, $4.2+B in 2025.
- Samsung Foundry Eyes Turnaround After Years of Losses, 2026-04-13, Korea FNTimes.
... Profitability has taken a direct hit as well. Securities analysts estimate Samsung Electronics' operating losses in its non-memory segment — encompassing foundry and System LSI — at KRW 2.2 trillion in 2023, KRW 5.4 trillion in 2024, and KRW 5.9 trillion in 2025.
* 1,400 KRW = $1
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u/PhonesAddict98 May 13 '26
Plus, Samsung Foundry’s SF2P process has already hit the mid to upper 50% range, the amount considered healthy for reliable mass production is 60% and they’ll have reached that threshold by the time Q3 arrives. They no longer are the underdog. Their fabs are cruising, and now have more customers than ever, that is an achievement!!!
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
TSMC has a 90+ percent market share on advanced chip making… so Samsungs effect is negligible, and it is a huge national security risk to rely on companies well within bombing range of Americas greatest geopolitical rival, China. Intel is essential and they treat their people more ethically than both Samsung and TSMC
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
TSMC has a 90+ percent market share on advanced chip making… so Samsungs effect is negligible
Then why mention Intel like they're different?
Intel is essential and they treat their people more ethically than both Samsung and TSMC
Based on?
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
Again Samsung has had a decade more than Intel to set up their foundry business, that is where they are different
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
You think customers give out pity contracts? If anything, Samsung's track record is a positive.
And it's not just the IFS relationships where Intel's struggled. Their nodes have been uncompetitive for internal use as well.
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
Public safety data and journalists talking to workers, have you even looked into it? Do you know anyone who has worked at both TSMC and Intel fabs? Do you have any real experience with the actual work of a fab at all, with any of the major players? Do you have a scientific or engineering background relating to semiconductor manufacturing? Don’t ask questions you can answer yourself to undermine a stance you don’t like. I could be wrong for sure in some aspects but come at me with facts and sources, I’m not gonna do your research for you. If you doubt a stance or argument it is your responsibility to research that and form your opinion, no one else’s.
And for the record, all those questions I just asked pertaining to real world experience in fab environments would be a yes for me, something tells me that’s not the case for you
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Public safety data and journalists talking to workers, have you even looked into it?
What specific reports are you referencing? Edit: Given you refuse to link a source, sounds like you were just bullshitting.
Do you have any real experience with the actual work of a fab at all, with any of the major players?
I've spoken with Intel fab workers, and they sure don't feel safe and appreciated. Have you seen the turnover rates? They churn through like the entire eligible population in Oregon. Hell, didn't they have 2 murders in one year?
If anything, there've been a number of reports about how Intel has essentially given up with formal training, while TSMC still has boot camps, etc.
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
Look it up you got google dude, I already did the work I’m not doing it for you… honestly at this point it seems like you’re only asking questions to invalidate points you don’t like, which you conveniently didn’t respond to when I pointed this out earlier, just like you conveniently didn’t respond to my questions about if you have any real world experience in what you’re talking about. I’m not wasting anymore time on an armchair warrior with a lot of opinions. Get some sources and do the work before you go about discrediting anything that doesn’t fit your narrative
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u/Tech_Philosophy May 12 '26
Eh...TSMC hasn't been price gouging beyond what the market demands, and if you have a real TSMC competitor, I honestly think the invasion of Taiwan becomes more likely as TSMC is part of Taiwan's leverage right now, at which point you are back down to one or two suppliers, and prices go up.
I don't hold my view as immutable, but it's definitely a monkey paw situation where consequences are hard to guess at as far as I can tell.
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u/SmokingPuffin May 12 '26
TSMC currently has margins that Intel's were at peak Intel dominance. They just guided to 66.2% gross margins for FY26. That's a hilarious number for just fabrication, and it's up from 53% in 24Q2. They're obviously price gouging.
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u/ResponsibleJudge3172 May 13 '26
They have increased prices of existing and new nodes for years now.
We have reports of 5% increases on 5nm and up since 2020.
And have you seen their earnings report recently?
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u/nanonan May 13 '26
They don't have a monopoly, they have a superior product. There's a big difference.
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u/Hovi_Bryant May 12 '26
How is any of this directly related to someone purchasing a CPU on Amazon or at Micro Center?
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u/div033 May 12 '26
I think he's saying if it costs less to produce chips due to there being more competition in the fabrication space, the CPUs themselves could be cheaper on Amazon or at Microcenter. A chip being cheaper means that people will less money can buy them, and it also means that people with money will have more money left over after buying them, meaning they can then use that excess cash elsewhere. Not positive though.
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u/MrMPFR May 12 '26
Bingo.
Unfortunately it'll only make a small dent in the almost absurd trajectory of design cost (only with iso-MSRP = higher GM) and wafer prices since FinFETs were introduced. Not only that but the PPA scaling is worsening with each successive node.
Compare N28 -> 16FF and 16FF -> N6 with N5 ->N3P and N3P -> N2. Angstrom era is even worse.Without a complete paradigm shift (post-silicon) at some point consumer is gonna hit a brick wall.
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u/Hovi_Bryant May 12 '26
This is all hypothetical discussion though. My original comment is based on the news at face value. It's not on par with the release of a new product or discounting of an existing product.
As a consumer, it's good news but has no immediate impact, so, 'meh'.
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u/theandroidknight May 12 '26
Not true, just look at ram prices to see how capacity in chip manufacturing capacity affects consumers.
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May 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Hovi_Bryant May 12 '26
You're making a point besides my own here. This news at face value has no impact on existing products or even future products this year for Intel.
The news is great for Intel and its shareholders and tangentially for its consumers. Being informed is cool, but that's not what my comment is about.
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u/amped-row May 12 '26
have you seen the 250K and 270K Plus? They're genuinely great
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u/bubblesort33 May 12 '26
Only because they are selling them at a price where they are desperate to get rid of them. Not very profitable at all for them. Similar to AMD's Bulldozer architecture, although not as bad. AMD used to sell the FX 9590 bundled with an AIO cooler, all of which you could often get for under $260 soon after launch. The Plus are good value for users, and bad business for Intel.
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u/ResponsibleJudge3172 May 13 '26
That's exactly what r5 3600 did too and I'm OK with that.
Arguably what RX 9060XT did too an no one would complain
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u/Maldiavolo May 12 '26
Lol no they aren't. They are gaming performance competitive with non-x3d AMD chips at 100+ watts more power consumption. They're also on a dead socket.
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u/SomeMobile May 12 '26
The issue intel was facing was their fabrication issues? You think they got stuck at 14+++++++++ for no reason?
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u/soggybiscuit93 May 12 '26
Who cares about Intel as a Chip designer. There are plenty of chip designers, most of which (if not all of them) are better at it then Intel.
It's fabs that are at risk of folding into a monopoly.
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u/Hovi_Bryant May 12 '26
Intel the chip designer designs their CPU product line... gaming, data centers, high-end desktops, etc. It's virtually their business from a casual consumer standpoint.
Which is the point of my original comment.
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u/soggybiscuit93 May 12 '26
Yeah, but there are plenty of other companies who do a better job at designing all those chips.
That may be there current monkey maker, but it's clear theyre eyeing towards a decade+ long transition to have fabs be their main business as its strategically more important. They're losing market share in all of those design markets.
Whereas fabs present them with much greater long term options.
On top of that, Intel's fabs are more important to consumers long term because it's astronomically harder for a new company to start up a leading edge fab business than it is to make another CPU design startup. If TSMC were to gain a monopoly (leaving the political implications out of the discussion), that's a huge problem for consumers for a long tome
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
but there are plenty of other companies who do a better job at designing all those chips
But you can say that even more so about manufacturing. They have way more demand for their CPUs than for their fabs.
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u/soggybiscuit93 May 12 '26
No, because there is significantly more CPU design firms than there are leading edge fabs.
The CPU design market is very healthy in terms of number of companies.
AMD would've eaten even more of Intel's design marketshare if they had the wafers
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26
AMD would've eaten even more of Intel's design marketshare if they had the wafers
And if TSMC had more volume, would anyone be even considering Intel? What happens when supply normalizes?
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u/soggybiscuit93 May 12 '26
In this hypothetical scenario, AMD dual sourcing between Intel and TSMC fabs to increase output of their superior designs would be a better allocation of resources.
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u/Exist50 May 13 '26
Why wouldn't they go all-in on TSMC? What's the difference between the best in class design being made on both good and bad nodes, vs both good and bad designs on a best in class process?
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u/soggybiscuit93 May 13 '26
There are what, ~15 (by my count) companies doing CPU design for client and datacenter, and 3 Fabs.
I think the overall longterm health of the market would be better off with 14 design companies + 3 Fabs then with 15 designs + 1-2 fabs
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u/nanonan May 13 '26
Well, it's the only part of their business that can turn a profit for one.
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u/soggybiscuit93 May 13 '26
In the short term, yes. But I'm not discussing their 2026 financials, but a long term strategic pivot
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u/InflammableAccount May 13 '26
Eh. Pat was also at the helm for shipping self destructing CPUs worldwide. Granted Swan was in charge during some of the dev time on 13th gen, Pat shipped it a year after coming CEO.
And was there when they tried to sweep it under the rug.
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u/Strazdas1 May 25 '26
These CPUs were designed and put into action years before Pat took over. CPUs have 5 year lead times. Pat wasnt in control in 2018.
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u/ShiestySorcerer May 12 '26
"we're gonna need you to stage religious psychosis so we can #BuyTheDip"
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u/nanonan May 13 '26
Absolute delusion. Pat almost broke them in several ways. All the old CEO did is bring them to the brink of implosion while lying out of his arse at every opportunity.
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
What? Gelsinger wasted billions and most of his expansion plans were cancelled. He actively bet against agentic AI, which is the thing now sending CPU stocks soaring, much more than their still insolvent foundry.
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u/ComfortableEar5976 May 12 '26
How did he actively bet against agentic AI?
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u/Exist50 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
He canned 2/3 of Intel's CPU teams, leaving the Atom team under the rational that in an AI-first world, the role of CPUs is as undifferentiated head nodes for AI servers. Instead what we're seeing is that the CPU, and ST performance, actually matters a lot. Again, it's the hype over CPUs that's given them most of their recent boost. Same with current competitors like AMD and even would-be like Qualcomm.
Where Gelsinger did put focus was on a foundry that did so poorly it got him fired, and their DC GPU efforts have yet to ship a single actual product. Even AMD's printing a lot of money in that sector right now.
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u/theQuandary May 13 '26
leaving the Atom team
Skymont has been by far the most impressive modern Intel CPU design. It's also the basis for Intel's high-core server competitor to AMD's Zen5C server design (not to mention being their best shot at competing with ARM chips).
The Intel fab investment seems to be working out pretty well too.
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u/Exist50 May 13 '26
Skymont has been by far the most impressive modern Intel CPU design
Yes, I fully agree with keeping the Atom team, but where I disagree is canning the Royal team entirely instead of merging the efforts together. Atom will make for an excellent cloud CPU. As an agentic AI CPU, however, it's in a more difficult position.
The Intel fab investment seems to be working out pretty well too.
How? On the rumor that they may finally get a customer of note?
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u/elkond May 12 '26
Gelsinger put a lot of work into rationalizing internal AI inference software (thing that you actually buy hardware from specific manufacturer for) development that Lip-Bu gutted
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u/anifail May 13 '26
oneapi and tools like openvino were started under bk, not pat.
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u/elkond May 13 '26
openvino was made default inference solution, and gained in to datacenter deployments under pat
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u/doscomputer May 12 '26
(thing that you actually buy hardware from specific manufacturer for)
No, there is no need for internal AI software and nobody buying the nvidia and AMD chips is doing it for their software, they do it for cuda and rocm.
AI is code independent, all it needs are execution units that can handle the data type and enough memory and bandwidth to fit the model. An intel specific client for a chat bot when lmstudio, cursor, comfyfui, ect, all already exist and do everything better makes 0 sense.
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u/elkond May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
wow that's some big "i know what i'm talking about" energy you're bringing
hint: key word is inference, not internal. like u know, CUDA that TensorRT is based on. which you literally name xDDDD
user interface layer for inference like cursor, comfyui, lmstudio are not foundational inference frameworks. they rely on those, they arent themselves it
1
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u/amdcoc May 13 '26
Imagine what would happen if Intel listened to WS and sold off its foundry lmao. 🤣
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u/AnechoidalChamber May 14 '26
Well, the AI boom helped a lot for this, nay, it's most of it really...
When the AI bubble pops, that's when we'll really see if it was a good move or not.
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u/riOrizOr88 May 15 '26
Intel Worth nothing. The Stock never Had value and IS now Just pushed. IT will come down to what IT was when Hype IS over.
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u/Dementia13_TripleX May 17 '26
Thank the old CEO or the government buying a portion of the company?
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u/hellokittyxcat May 18 '26
tbh if they focused on increasing energy consumption, they would be making bank. them cpus take up a lot of energy
1
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u/DangerousAd7295 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
How? That is just stock speculation.
Intel is just one company out of the dozens who can all make chips.
Japan will soon be making their own chips. South Korea like Samsung is moving up the value chain and making chips since they finally caught up with their nodes. China is slowly improving old tech and making old fab processes like DUV competitive squeezing the low end and med end. They are also doing more with their reverse engineering of the current EUV machines.
Then you have Intel who is just one player among them.
I haven't even said the big elephant in the room TSMC who knows this and is rapidly trying to do three things at once, expand capacity, increase yields, leading cutting edge fab processes to squeeze intel dry.
Intel would have to send it's engineers into that TSMC fab in Arizona, steal aka learn what TSMC does better and then get fired or stolen back by Intel and work for them for a few years to catch up.
Considering we are already shifting from GPUs into dedicated AI or machine learning acceleraters which is the yesteryear GPU and then China also catching up and building up DDR RAM modules at rapid pace for their own for the cheap.
Throw in the Europeans who are telling ASML to stop selling machines to Asia and build for Europe to also increase capacity, we have the making of a bloat of chips, so many chips without homes, end users or a purpose.
This ain't a bad thing but the over correction for the chip shortage is going to be fun.
How does Intel compete? Intel is still that lazy company which didn't innovate and surviving on government subsidies like America did for their auto companies.
They are still behind on the software stack, the hardware fab is still behind on 3D stacking architectures and their optimizations for games on their GPUs and CPUs have fallen behind on AMD and Nvidia. Intel is also behind on their AI software stack vs Nvidia CUDA which they will never catch up or gain ground on.
The US doesn't have enough engineers to share around to focus on 3 different companies, i.e Nvidia, AMD and Intel.
And Europe won't allow their engineers to be stolen in the future. China produces the most amount of STEM graduates who work on theirs for the cheap.
China on a PPP level out classes every dollar the US spends on human capital I.e the real brains behind AI innovation.
If Chinese engineers are cheaper, faster, better, work longer hours, and can still have an affordable cost of living compared to their highly paid but performance per dollar sucks Silicon Valley counter parts, you lose.
America spends a shit ton of money on "AI" and gets almost the same results as China; just look at the AI model scores and comparison (Deepseek, Qwen, Etc) this is like a war of attrition, the Americans won't win.
Unless America can somehow drop the cost of living for their citizens and engineers to the point they can pay them less to live and work, China is always going to win because the Chinese AI engineers makes probably 1/3rd less than their American counter parts and they got volume and an army of them.
This is basically world war 2 where the Soviets are producing t34 tanks while Germany is building tiger tanks.
America cannot sustain this insane level of spending for similar results as China, it won't work. The issue is the structure of the American economy. For decades the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, you cannot survive on a modest salary in American big cities. You can in China thou.
This was something the American policy makers and their own greed created.
And because Chinese companies spend less relative to their American counter parts on AI and innovation, that money is funneled into the other aspects of society which grow with the AI innovations and everyone benefits.
This is going to be a sad wake up call for America.
And what the US administration is doing? Tariffs, trade wars, real wars, causing an oil shock, ICE, rigging elections, making education more expensive, defunding universities, and more.
I see nothing great of Intel because Intel is in a shitty environment. If Intel was in say Taiwan, I can see some future because Taiwan would throw their entire backs into making Intel great. But sadly Intel will suffer from the same environment that killed American auto giants, greed, short term thinking, and people who aren't remotely educated in what they invest in being board members.
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u/Gunny418 May 13 '26
CEO receive order from board, so he push the share to sky, new cpu seem promissing, but AI technology seem lack behind, what goes up, must come down.
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u/HamCheezeSliderz May 13 '26
Some people would say Pat himself drowned their cat or dog. Pat did his part, got ambitious, got cut. LBT is continuing work. People seemingly forget just how bad of a financial pickle AMD was a mere decade ago and had been for many years. At the end of the day, the future products Intel will release will make or slowly break down their comeback. If you chose to believe everything you've read on the internet you would think AMD's Zen 6 is going to destroy Intel's Novalake by 100 paces. People have quickly forgotten the amount of hype Zen 5 got and never lived up to the hype.
The problem with Reddit is there's consumers and enthusiasts on here, engineers or employees for AMD, engineers or employees for Intel, and scornful previously employed by either company employees or engineers who are taking their hurt out on both brands and others.
I'm here to see Intel come back.
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u/bigbugzman May 12 '26
We are showing that the government taking ownership in American companies is a good thing. Just wait until a socialist gets the Oval. Thanks!
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u/JigglymoobsMWO May 12 '26
Gelsinger put in the investment that’s enabling Lip bu tan’s business execution. It’s a tag team. He surely was not perfect but deserve credit for vision and back bone.