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Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

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Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#361

Post by mschuster91 »

burnte wrote: post #310
mschuster91 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they have turned down various console makers The problem is, console manufacturers know precisely how much of their product they anticipate to sell, and it's usually a lot . The PlayStation 5 is 80 million units so far. And at that scale, the console manufacturers want to squeeze every vendor as hard as they can... and Intel didn't see the need to engage in a bidding war with AMD that would have given them a sizabl…

> And at that scale, the console manufacturers want to squeeze every vendor as hard as they can... and Intel didn't see the need to engage in a bidding war with AMD that would have given them a sizable revenue but very little profit margin compared to selling Xeon CPUs to hyperscalers where Intel has much more leverage to command higher prices and thus higher margins. And so that gave AMD an opening, and with that op…

> and they handed market to AMD that AMD used to be a better market competitor.

AMD isn't precisely a market competitor. The server and business compute market is still firmly Intel and there isn't much evidence of that changing unless Apple drops M series SoCs to the wide open market which Apple won't do. Intel could probably release a raging dumpster fire and still go strong, oh wait, that's what they've been doing the last few years.

AMD is only a competitor in the lower end of the market, a market Intel has zero issue handing to AMD outright - partially because a viable AMD keeps the antitrust enforcers from breathing down their neck, but more because it drags down per-unit profit margins to engage in consoles and the lower rungs and niches.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#362

Post by jerf »

bee_rider wrote: post #319
paxys wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government is itself a major shareholder in Intel, and has every incentive to push Intel stock over its competitors. It's almost a certainty that Nvidia was forced into this deal by the government as well. We are way beyond regulation here.

The US government isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be) profit-motivated anyway, so it isn’t obvious what their incentives are WRT Intel’s stock.

They want a source of chips for the wars they want to conduct that is not either controlled by the party they want to go war with, or way way closer to the party they want to go to war with than they are. Buying a chunk of Intel is a way of making sure they do the things the government wants that will lead to that outcome. Or at least so the theory goes; I've got my own cynicism on this matter and wouldn't dream of tamping down on anyone else's.

Right now if the US wants to go to war with China, or anyone China really really likes, they can expect with high probability to very quickly encounter major problems getting the best chips. AIUI the world has other fab capacity that isn't in Taiwan, and some of it is even in the US, but they're all on much older processes. Some things it's not a problem that maybe you end up with an older 500MHz processor, but some things it's just a non-starter, like high-end AI.

Sibling commenters discussing profits are on the wrong track. Intel's 2024 revenue, not profits, was $53.1 billion. The Federal Government in 2024 spent $6,800 billion. No entity doing $1.8 trillion in 2024 in deficit spending gives a rat's ass about "profits". The US Federal government just spends what it wants to spend, it doesn't have any need to generate any sort of "profits" first. Thinking the Federal government cares about profits is being nowhere near cynical enough.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#363

Post by tiffanyh »

cherioo wrote: post #275
techsystems wrote: post #267

The reason why Nvidia is buying now does not have to do anything with Arc or GPU competition. There are mainly two reasons. 1) This year, Intel, TSMC, and Samsung announced their latest factories' yields. Intel was the earliest, with 18A, while Samsung was the most recent. TSMC yieled above 60%, Intel below 60%, and Samsung around 50% (but Samsung's tech is basically a generation ahead and technically more precise),…

I am curious where you get your information about Samsung being more “precise”. I was recently looking into 2nm myself, and based on wikipedia article on 2nm, TSMC 2nm is about 50% more dense than the samsung and intel equivalent. They aren’t remotely the same thing. Samsung 2nm and Intel 18A are about as dense as TSMC 3nm, that’s been in production for years.

This information is a bit dated but ...

Since "nm" is meaningless these days, the transistor count/mm2 is below.

As reference: TSMC 3nm is ~290 million transistors/mm2 (MTr/mm2).

             IBM      TSMC   Intel   Samsung
  22nm                       16.50  
  16nm/14nm          28.88   44.67   33.32
  10nm               52.51  100.76   51.82
  7nm                91.20  237.18   95.08
  5nm               171.30    
  3nm               292.21    
  2nm        333.33
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27063034

https://www.techradar.com/news/ibm-unveils-worlds-first-2nm-...

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#364

Post by bootsmann »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #356
evanjrowley wrote: post #211

Nvidia's stake in Intel could have terrible consequences. First, it is in Nvidia's interest to kill Intel's Arc graphics, and that would be very bad because it is the only thing brighing GPU prices down for consumers. Second, the death of Intel graphics / Arc would be extremely bad for Linux, because Intel's approach to GPU drivers is the best for compatibility, wheras Nvidia is actively hostile to drivers on Linux.…

nah, nvidia wouldnt do that it would invite an DOJ case

Thats something Jensen Huang can do away with by bringing a golden gpu statue to the white house.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#365

Post by bee_rider »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #330
bee_rider wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be) profit-motivated anyway, so it isn’t obvious what their incentives are WRT Intel’s stock.

They can buy enough stock to shift the price, then use that as a lever to control their own investments prices (and thence profits). Like they've done with tariffs.

That sounds more like an abuse of government powers for individual gain than any legitimate government interest. If that was the plan it would make just as much sense to short a company and then announce a plan to put them under greater regulatory scrutiny.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#366

Post by andirk »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #329
yalogin wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t follow how it’s a death knell to intel AI chips. Nvidia bought shares, not a board seat. May be that’s the plan, but if you take the example of Microsoft buying apple shares that only gave apple a lifeline to build better. I do understand nvidia wants to have the whole gpu market to themselves but how will they do it?

They literally bought board seats - not today, but shares entitle you to vote on the board members on the next shareholder meeting. And 5$bn of shares buy you a lot of votes.

5$bn may not buy a huge amount of voting power, but if there are close votes on important things then it could be enough to affect the company. Keeping ones enemies closer, regardless of voting, can also help overall.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#367

Post by bee_rider »

jerf wrote: post #362
bee_rider wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be) profit-motivated anyway, so it isn’t obvious what their incentives are WRT Intel’s stock.

They want a source of chips for the wars they want to conduct that is not either controlled by the party they want to go war with, or way way closer to the party they want to go to war with than they are. Buying a chunk of Intel is a way of making sure they do the things the government wants that will lead to that outcome. Or at least so the theory goes; I've got my own cynicism on this matter and wouldn't dream of t…

Sure, but this is an interesting independent of the government holding Intel stock.

The US government always ought to have the interest of US companies in mind, their job is to work in the interest of the voters and a lot of us work for US companies.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#368

Post by paxys »

jerf wrote: post #362
bee_rider wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be) profit-motivated anyway, so it isn’t obvious what their incentives are WRT Intel’s stock.

They want a source of chips for the wars they want to conduct that is not either controlled by the party they want to go war with, or way way closer to the party they want to go to war with than they are. Buying a chunk of Intel is a way of making sure they do the things the government wants that will lead to that outcome. Or at least so the theory goes; I've got my own cynicism on this matter and wouldn't dream of t…

This is generally true even setting side the "war with China" angle. Intel is a large domestic company employing hundreds of thousands in a very critical sector, and the government has every incentive to prevent it from failing. In the last two decades we've bailed out auto companies and banks and US Steel (kinda) for the same reason.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#369

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

lacy_tinpot wrote: post #323
evanjrowley wrote: post #211

Nvidia's stake in Intel could have terrible consequences. First, it is in Nvidia's interest to kill Intel's Arc graphics, and that would be very bad because it is the only thing brighing GPU prices down for consumers. Second, the death of Intel graphics / Arc would be extremely bad for Linux, because Intel's approach to GPU drivers is the best for compatibility, wheras Nvidia is actively hostile to drivers on Linux.…

Not necessarily true. This might be a Microsoft funding a bankrupt Apple kind of moment. American competition isn't a zero sum, and it's in Nvidias' best interest to keep the market healthy.

One interesting parallel is Intel and AMD back in x86 1991, which is today the reason AMD is at all allowed to produce x86 without massive patent royalties to intel. [Asianometry](https://youtu.be/5oOk_KXbw6c) had a nice summery of it.

Nvidia is leaning more into data centres, but lack a CPU architecture or expertise. Intel is struggling financially, but have knowledge in iGPUs and a vast amount of patents.

They could have alot to give one another, and it's a massive win if it keeps intel afloat.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#370

Post by aDyslecticCrow »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #167

This is a death blow to the Intel GPU+AI efforts and should not be allowed by the regulators. It is clear that Intel needs the downstream, low-cost GPU market segment to have a portfolio of AI chips based on chiplets, where most defective ones end up in the consumer grade GPUs based on manufacturing yield. NVidias interest is now for Intel not to enter either the GPU market, nor the AI market - which Intel was prepar…

The alternative is currently looking like cutting up of intel into piecemeal to make a quick buck just to stay afloat. The GPU division is not profitable and may be destroyed if overall financials don't improve.
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