Analysis-After years of failed AI deals, Intel plans homegrown challenge to Nvidia

Arsheeya Bajwa, Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis

Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 5:17 PM 3 min read

By Arsheeya Bajwa, Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) -One of Intel's biggest missteps implicit the past decennary was the nonaccomplishment to situation Nvidia's dominance successful the fast-growing marketplace for artificial quality chips.

During his archetypal net league telephone with analysts arsenic Intel's caller CEO, Lip-Bu Tan outlined however Intel hopes to alteration that, but warned, "This is not a speedy fix." Tan said helium would comb done Intel's existing products to sharpen them for emerging trends successful the AI marketplace specified arsenic robotics and agents that tin transportation retired tasks for quality users.

The undertaking volition beryllium challenging due to the fact that Nvidia nary longer sells conscionable chips - it sells full information centers, from chips to cables to bundle compilers. Tan connected Thursday said Intel volition instrumentality a akin approach.

Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner said that, successful the adjacent term, Intel won't marque galore much acquisitions. "Our precedence volition request to be, astatine this point, getting the equilibrium expanse to a amended place," Zinsner told Reuters successful an interview.

The accusation is that Tan's efforts to astatine past enactment unneurotic a coherent AI strategy volition beryllium homegrown.

"We are taking a holistic attack to redefine our portfolio, to optimize our products for caller and emerging AI workloads," Tan said. "Our extremity is to go the level of prime for our customers. This requires america to radically germinate our plan and engineering mindset and expect the needs of our lawsuit good successful advance."

Historically, Intel's attack was to permission AI startups to bash the enactment of processing caller chips and past get them. Between 2016 and 2019, the institution purchased a drawstring of spot companies - Movidius, Mobileye, Nervana and Habana Labs - that it hoped would assistance it ace the AI market.

While Mobileye retained a beardown presumption successful autonomous driving and Intel has retained a involvement successful the institution aft a spinout, the remainder of the deals failed to assistance Intel summation traction against Nvidia.

“Intel has a agelong past of gathering important caller silicon developments wrong its ain walls, truthful I’m not shocked to spot them absorption connected in-house developments for AI," Bob O'Donnell, main expert astatine Technalysis Research, told Reuters. "If they tin physique the due acceptable of bundle enactment to assistance marque it casual to deploy these caller chips, past they person a chance—but that is simply a large if.”

But different analysts said that Nvidia's ascendant position, on with the efforts of large cloud-computing firms specified arsenic Amazon.com and Google to physique their ain AI chips, leaves small country for Intel to interruption into the market.