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Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

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Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#111
post #31

Remember when Microsoft invested in Apple when Apple was down in the dumps? This is giving similar vibes. That deal was arguably what saved Apple near its nadir. I’m not a fan of Intel’s past monopolistic practices, but for the sake of sustaining competition in the CPU/GPU market, I hope this deal works out for them even half as well as the MS deal did for Apple.

Nah I have feeling this is part of the result of the arm twisting to be allowed to sell to China.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#112
post #83
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be serious. Intel was well on its way to be a considerable threat to NVIDIA with their Arc line of GPUs, which are getting better and cheaper with each generation. Perhaps not in the enterprise and AI markets yet, but certainly on the consumer side. This news muddies this approach, and I see it as a misstep for both Intel and for consumers. Intel is only helping NVIDIA, which puts them further away from uns…

I'm not convinced. The latest Battlemage benchmarks I've seen put the B580 at the same performance as the RTX 4060 (which is a two years old entry-level card) but with 50% more power consumption (80W vs 125W average). It's good to have more than one open source supporting graphics vendor, but I don't think Nvidia is losing any sleep over Intel's GPU offerings.

Battlemage had the best perf/% and most the driver issues from Alchemist had been ironed out. Another generation or two of steady progress and intel have a big winner on their hands.

Intel's foundry costs are probably competitive with nvidia too - nvidia has too much opportunity cost if nothing else.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#113
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Remember when Microsoft invested in Apple when Apple was down in the dumps? This is giving similar vibes. Doesn't feel the same because the 1997 investment was arranged by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. He had a long personal relationship with Bill Gates so could just call him to drop the outstanding lawsuits and get a commitment for future Office versions on the Mac. Basically, Steve Jobs at relatively young age of 4…

> This $5 billion investment feels more like the result of back-channel discussions with the US government where they "politely" ask NVIDIA to help out Intel in exchange for less restrictions selling chips to China. Stinks of Mussolini-style Corporatism to me.

[deleted]

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#114
post #31

Remember when Microsoft invested in Apple when Apple was down in the dumps? This is giving similar vibes. That deal was arguably what saved Apple near its nadir. I’m not a fan of Intel’s past monopolistic practices, but for the sake of sustaining competition in the CPU/GPU market, I hope this deal works out for them even half as well as the MS deal did for Apple.

It's even more ironic when you remember in 2005 the tables were turned, and Intel was trying to buy Nvidia.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#115
post #88

This really wasn't a surprise, nVidia has seemed to be itching for a meaningful entry to the CPU market and when intel's CEO started undoing all and any future investment in the company it was clear everything was being setup for a sell off. 5 Billion is just a start but this is a gift for nVidia to eventually squire intel.

I think if Nvidia wanted to acquire Intel, they would acquire Intel.

Intel has never been so cheap relative to the kinds of IP assets that Nvidia values and probably will not be ever again if this and other investments keep it afloat.

Trump's FTC would not block.

You write with proper case-sensitivity for their titles which suggests some historic knowledge of the two. They have been very close partners on CPU+GPU for decades. This investment is not fundamentally changing that.

The current CEO is more like a CFO--cutting costs and eliminating waste. There are two exits from that: sell off, as you say, and re-investment in the products of most likely future profit. This could be a signal that the latter is the plan and that the competitive aspects of the nVidia-intel partnership will be sidelined for a while.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#116
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the fab part is. Intel needs to separate the two. Maybe Nvidia, AMD, or Qualcomm can buy the the fab part.

Why would either of these three be interested in buying a fab? The only other large player with its own fab is Samsung and Samsung has the same problem that Intel has, namedly a fab that is nowhere near close to TSMC. I agree that Intel would be better served to spin off its fab division, a potential buyer could be the US government for military and national security relevant projects.

Someone could be interested. It could also be Global Foundries. High risk big reward bet which the government is willing to help mitigate some of the risk with funding.

They just need to separate business units.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#117
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbf, If I were Nvidia and antitrust wasn't an issue I'd be tempted to buy the whole thing. Intel has a market cap just 2.5% of NVDA, so you could give away just 2.5% of your stock to buy the entirety of Intel. It's bonkers.

There are two scenarios here. In one, the AI bubble bursts (so Nvidia is overpriced now) and almost any value stock deal is good for them. In the other, it doesn't, and this gives them a limited hedge against problems with their most critical strategic partner (TSMC). It looks like a good deal either way and in any amount. But of course I am no expert.

I suppose the problem is Intel doesn't actually have the fab capacity anyway. They were building it, but that's all on ice now, and probably wasn't close to TSMC anyway, I'd guess.

This all ignores the near complete lack of product out of their advanced processes as well.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#118
post #100

> Nvidia announced that it will buy $5 billion in Intel common stock at $23.28 per share, representing a roughly 5% ownership stake in Intel. (Intel stock is now up 33% in premarket trading.) Why/how is INTC premarket up from $24.90 around 30% (to $32), when Nvidia is buying the stock at $23.28 ? Who is selling the stock? I suppose the Intel board decided this? Why did they sell under the current market price? Didn't…

It's typical in these situations that the price per stock is negotiated, with current SP as a starting point. It's fairly unusual, I think, for the company selling stock to get a price significantly higher than market price. It's more typical that there's a slight discount. At least that's been the case for every stock I owned where dilution has occured. We also don't know yet when exactly this deal was negotiated and approved, so it's hard to actually say. Considering where INTC has been very recently(below $20), $23.28 seems very reasonable to me.

The reason the stock surged up past $30 is the general market's reaction to the news, and subsequent buying pressure, not the stock transaction itself. It seems likely that once the exuberance cools down, the SP will pull back, where to I can't say. Somewhere between $25 and $30 would be my bet, but this is not financial advice, I'm just spitballing here.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wanted to acquire Intel you'd do it now. Maybe Intel's future products are garbage and they do worse - but the upside seems pretty high otherwise. This seems like a bit of a firesale price to acquire an advanced fab and CPU maker. Sure, it's Intel and they haven't been doing great, but companies with solid reliable outlooks don't trade this cheaply. Ofc I would kind of hope/expect antitrust to object given tha…

> If you wanted to acquire Intel you'd do it now. Intel still has to go through a lot of reorg (i.e. massive cuts) to get to a happy place, and this is what their succession of CEOs have been procrastinating over.

I recall reading a reddit comment (resounding source, I know) that claimed the reason Intel's e-cores are crushing it is because they actually synthesise them, while the P-cores are a bunch of bespoke circuits bodged together.

One wonders just how bad things must have been internally for that to be the state of one of their core IPs in this day and age...

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure Larrabee will be superb any year now. The Xeon phi will rise again. For supporting evidence, the success of Aurora. Weren't the loss-leading arc GPUs cancelled as well? Maybe that only one generation of them, it does look like some are on the market now. I think this partnership will damage nvidia. It might damage intel, but given they're circling the drain already, it's hard to make matters worse. It's prob…

Has Nvidia has ran any fab successfully ?

Nope. It will/would be a learning curve. They'd probably seed it with strategic hires from TSMC.
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