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U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

cnbc.com

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Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#661

Post by Jensson »

thisisit wrote: post #650
bcrosby95 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If shareholders are losing ownership it's less a pure bailout and more a strategic investment and/or takeover. It also potentially lets the average taxpayer benefit rather than just those its directly propping up.

Here I thought the point of a grant/subsidy is that it allows companies to take risk - by setting up factories, funding research without worrying about the monetary cost etc. Government benefits through one, generating employment - direct and indirect employment, raising taxes through personal taxes (indirectly impacting tax collection) or second the country being at the forefront of the innovation etc. That is how a…

> But I guess trying to nationalize companies and "benefiting" from company profits was something people were missing. How did no one see that? Ah yes, third world countries try this routinely for "national security" and it always leads to moral hazard pointed out by the person above you.

This isn't nationalizing it though, this is just an investment into it. Investments aren't bad.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#662

Post by rnrn »

anon291 wrote: post #338
jjcm wrote: post #199

In general I would rather the government take a stake in corporations they're bailing out. I think the "too big to fail" bailouts in the past should have come with more of a cost for the business, so on one hand I'm glad this is finally happening. On the other hand, I wish it were a more formalized process rather than this politicized "our president made a deal to save america!" / "Intel is back and the government is…

The government is not 'bailing' Intel out. Intel's CPU business is profitable. Their manufacturing is not. America gave intel grants to build better manufacturing to secure America's national security interests. Congress did not authorize any acquisition of Intel shares. All the talk about this from a business / investment side leaves out the simple fact that this is not actually authorized by anyone with the power t…

Are you sure congress didn’t authorize this ? i.e. actually specified that the money could only be used for grants and could not be used for equity purchases?

> The Department of Commerce is authorized to provide funding in various forms, including grants, cooperative agreements, loans, and loan guarantees, in exercising its Section 9902 authorities

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47523

AFAICT the relevant section of law says it is up to the Secretary of Commerce to determine the funding type to be used for the semiconductor financial assistance

https://www.congress.gov/116/plaws/publ283/PLAW-116publ283.p...

See my other comment : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44995799

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#663

Post by mensetmanusman »

intended wrote: post #492
bongodongobob wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't build a new Intel. That would take decades. These aren't startups. They are massive fucking machines that can't just be disassembled and put back together by someone else. So the idea is to control them and get them back on track to better serve the collective interest.

You do that by letting them fail. You let them fail because that ensures that everyone else in the economy fixes their shit and stays competitive. America developed more world class successes, by getting out of the way and letting badly run firms fail. Especially since NVIDIA is a competitor.

Intel failed because the Taiwan government started tsmc and supported an amazing business model that turned out to be perfect for SC manufacturing.

Unfortunately, this is in a country that China is threatening to takeover while building the largest bomb shelters and field hospitals right across the strait.

China is forcing us to invest kind of like they are forced to prop up Huawei to make GPUs for deepseek. Conflict makes irrational actions happen.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#664

Post by mensetmanusman »

lugu wrote: post #469
gizajob wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia has a market cap of 4.5 trillion dollars and everyone is committing hundreds of billions to AI CapEx in their direction - they can afford to organise chip fabs if it really came to it. Ok TSMC and ASML would need to be on board but it could be done. Should be done in fact because even a simple SWOT analysis would show the risk to their business.

What is the risk for Nvidia if TSMC diseaper? Wouldn't they simply switch supplier and pick the second best option?

GPUs would go backwards a few generations for 5-10 years. Also supply shock on other industries would double the prices of chips for vehicles. Eg covid 3.0

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#665

Post by kragen »

johnecheck wrote: post #604
kragen wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel's wafers are made of silicon, which is a semiconductor. Silicon on sapphire hasn't been widely used for a long time, if that's what you're thinking of. Photolithography prints resists on semiconductor wafers which are then used to pattern the next process step, such as wet etching, plasma etching, oxide growth, epitaxial polysilicon growth, ion implantation, etc. These mostly remove semiconductor from the wafer…

Interesting, I hadn't known that silicon is itself a semiconductor before all the circuits are added. Am I correct in saying that the etching process transforms a single semiconductor into billions?

No, silicon is still just one semiconductor, just like water is just one liquid. The substrate is still just one piece of silicon, despite having many silicon semiconductor devices fabricated in it. Polysilicon layers may or may not be additional pieces of silicon.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#666

Post by mensetmanusman »

gizajob wrote: post #408
scarface_74 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as a “smallish” chip manufacturer that can manufacture leading edge chips. It’s about scale. If it were that easy, Apple, Amazon, Google AMD, Nvidia, etc who all design their own chips would have done it.

I agree but by the same logic intel could have done it and didn’t manage to so far.

Intel couldn’t because the science is too hard to do with the scale of only your own designs. Intel had to stop competing with their own designs and open up their fabs like tsmc.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#667

Post by mensetmanusman »

electriclove wrote: post #583
UncleOxidant wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would've been much better to incentivize the likes of Apple and Nvidia to make investments in Intel. They need to have their designs fabbed, they have a good amount of geopolitical risk. They also have a lot of money on hand. Didn't Apple say they were going to invest $600B into the US? (not that that's really going to happen), ok, so why not put $50B into Intel?

Because that is not a good use of Apple’s $50B.

Their dragon’s hoard of cash is only being used for financial engineering.

Their finance team axed a meager $10B dollar investment to improve Siri thereby making Apple the laughing stock of the tech industry players who say they are working on AI.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#668

Post by boroboro4 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #609
re-thc wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One can argue how to interpret "financial assistance" broadly, which is exactly what the administration has done You can? So some years later they can change it again? Where's the trust?

The takeaway is the next Democrat president should just declare a public transit emergency and start building while the courts squabble. Same for housing reform. Same for climate change and shutting down coal power plants—once you shut it down and take out the turbines, it doesn’t matter what the courts say.

Yes, they should.

However in case of democrats president Supreme Court will be surprisingly fast on issuing emergency decisions and stopping executive actions…

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#669

Post by re-thc »

Auracle wrote: post #617
re-thc wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can definitely offer subsidies for manufacturing in the US The very subsidies Intel now has to pay with shares for? How is that a subsidy? Companies now and in the future would be very concerned before taking any US subsidies because the terms can always change after the fact.

Are we so sure Intel sees this as a bad thing? The US now has even more reason to prop them up.

Yes, does it matter if there are more reasons? If you want to do something, 1 is enough. The rest are excuses.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#670

Post by re-thc »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #634
re-thc wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fairly routine practice for business owners to let local politicians invest in their business Let? Like this 1? Where if you don't we threaten to fire the CEO and take over the company otherwise? Are you sure it is let? > local politicians Is 1 or more individuals. In this instance it is "the government" as an entity. Not the same?

First think about why it happens, and then decide whether you think this is the same.

So if I decide so it’s true? I don’t get where you’re going with your comments?
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