Nvidia invests $5 billion into Intel to jointly develop PC and data center chips

Nvidia is throwing Intel a $5 billion life raft, just weeks after similar stakes from the US government and SoftBank. Nvidia is investing $5 billion in Intel common stock in a collaboration that will see the pair “jointly develop multiple generations of custom data center and PC products.”

Nvidia says Intel will help build “x86 system-on-chips (SoCs) that integrate Nvidia RTX GPU chiplets.” These chips will power a “wide range” of PCs, by closely integrating Intel’s CPUs with Nvidia’s GPUs. Intel and Nvidia already have a close partnership on many gaming laptops, but combining both on a single SoC is a big step further.

It will help Intel and Nvidia better compete with AMD, which has been gaining ground on Intel with its impressive gaming desktop CPUs and a wide variety of AI laptop processors. It also raises further questions about the future of Intel’s Arc graphics card business, especially if the company is now relying on Nvidia’s GPU expertise.

Nvidia’s investment in Intel comes after the chipmaker has reportedly been working with MediaTek to develop an accelerated processing unit (APU) that combines an Arm-powered CPU with Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU architecture. Nvidia has been rumored to be working on Arm-based laptop chips for years, and a recent report suggested Nvidia’s Arm-powered gaming laptop could launch later this year with Alienware.

Nvidia and Intel will also work together on connecting both their architectures via Nvidia’s NVLink communications link system that’s used in data centers to link GPUs together. “Intel will build Nvidia-custom x86 CPUs that Nvidia will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms and offer to the market,” says Nvidia.

“This collaboration tightly couples Nvidia’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem — a fusion of two world-class platforms,” says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. “Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”

The US government agreed to take an around 10 percent stake in Intel last month, valued at $8.9 billion. SoftBank is also investing $2 billion into Intel, as the struggling chipmaker has been pulling back on spending and laying off thousands of workers.

Intel’s stock price jumped 28 percent in pre-market trading after Nvidia’s announcement.