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Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

tomshardware.com

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Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#81

Post by fidotron »

baq wrote: post #53
fidotron wrote: post #27

Possibly more curious than the investment: > Nvidia will also have Intel build custom x86 data center CPUs for its AI products for hyperscale and enterprise customers. Hell has frozen over at Intel. Actually listening to people that want to buy your stuff, whatever next? Presumably someone over there doesn't want the AI wave to turn into a repeat of their famous success with mobile. In the event Intel ever do get US…

If you were a big enough customer you could get a SKU for you, too. E.g. hyperscalers have Xeons which are not available for any other customers for any price.

But what they've completely resisted so far is any non trivial modification.

They turned down Acorn about the 286, which led to Acorn creating the Arm, they have turned down various console makers, they turned down Apple on the iPhone, and so on. In all cases they thought the opportunities were beneath them.

Intel has always been too much about what they want to sell you, not what you need. That worked for them when the two aligned over backwards compat.

Clearly the threat of an Arm or RISC-V finding itself fused to a GPU running AI inference workloads has woken someone up, at last.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#82

Post by adrr »

JCM9 wrote: post #65

Intel is a strategically important company for the United States. This smells like a token investment to appease the US government. Not saying it’s bad, but very much looks like that.

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

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#83

Post by tremon »

imiric wrote: post #46
JonChesterfield wrote: post #29

I can think of _nothing_ with a better shot at unseating nvidia than a merger with intel. Fingers crossed for ever closer union between the two.

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.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#85

Post by jasode »

qzw wrote: 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.

>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 42 was back at Apple in "founder mode" and made bold moves that the prior CEO Gil Amelio couldn't do.

Intel doesn't have the same type of leadership. Their new CEO is a career finance/investor instead of a "new products new innovation" type of leader. 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.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#86

Post by fidotron »

baq wrote: post #61
fidotron wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Judging by my linkedin feed the 'a lot of reorg' is underway.

Bluntly, Intel has corporate cancer, and it requires removing the actual cancers, not a sort of 20% haircut.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#88

Post by bilekas »

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.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#89

Post by bilekas »

saejox wrote: post #84

I hope this isn't "Shut-up" money to end ARC gpu development. i have an A770, i am very happy with it.

It's absolutely not, the ARC line is not a threat in any way to nVidia, it's to get it's feet into the CPU market without the initial setup costs and research it would take to start from scratch.

They will be dominating AMD now on both fronts if things go smoothly for them.

Re: Nvidia buys $5B in Intel

#90

Post by znpy »

qzw wrote: 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.

> Remember when Microsoft invested in Apple when Apple was down in the dumps?

Had Apple failed, Microsoft would probably have been found to have a clear monopolistic position. And microsoft was already in hot waters due to InternetExplorer IIRC.

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