Semiconductors

Nvidia offers a crutch to Intel by investing 5 billion in the chipmaker

Intel will use Nvidia's graphics technology in upcoming PC chips and also supply its processors for data centre products based on Nvidia hardware

18 September 2025

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Nvidia has agreed to invest USD 5 billion in Intel. The two companies will jointly develop chips for PCs and data centres, a surprise move to support a struggling historical rival.

Nvidia will buy Intel common stock at a price of $23.28 a share, the two companies said on Thursday. Intel will use Nvidia's graphics technology in upcoming PC chips and will also supply its processors for data centre products based on Nvidia hardware. The two companies did not provide a timeline for when the first components will go on sale and said the announcement does not affect their future plans. Intel's shares rose as much as 26 per cent in pre-market trading.

Intel under US government protection

The new funding for Intel comes after the US government agreed to take a roughly 10 per cent stake in the Santa Clara-based company in August, with President Donald Trump taking on the role of promoter. Japan's SoftBank Group, which has pledged to invest tens of billions in chip manufacturing and cloud infrastructure in the US, made a surprise $2 billion investment last month, and Intel is also raising cash by selling assets to investors. Its current businesses, hit by loss of market share, cannot bear the burden of the huge expenses associated with trying to make cutting-edge semiconductors.

The alliance between the two rivals based in Santa Clara, California, underlines how the balance of power in the computer industry has changed. Intel is receiving a financial boost and access to market-leading technologies from a company it once relegated to a niche role on the fringes of the industry.

"This historic collaboration tightly unites Nvidia's artificial intelligence and accelerated computing stack with Intel CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem, a fusion of two world-class platforms," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a note. "Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing."

The technical details of the agreement

Intel will offer PC chips that combine general-purpose processing with Nvidia's powerful graphics components, helping it better compete with Advanced Micro Devices (Amd), which is gaining market share in the desktop and laptop sectors. Amd is Nvidia's closest competitor when it comes to graphics chips. The leader in artificial intelligence is still considering whether to outsource the production of its chips to Intel, but has no plans to do so at the moment.

In data centres, where Nvidia's artificial intelligence accelerators dominate and have relegated Intel and others to minor roles, Intel will provide its rival with processors to integrate into some products. As Nvidia increasingly integrates its artificial intelligence chips into larger processing clusters, the processors are expected to handle general tasks for which its graphics semiconductors are not ideal.

"We appreciate the confidence Jensen and the Nvidia team have placed in us with their investment and look forward to working to innovate for customers," said Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. "Intel's x86 architecture has been fundamental to modern computing for decades and we are innovating our portfolio to support the workloads of the future."