As Intel Goes Through Its Worst Phase, Qualcomm Has Made an Offer to Acquire Intel, Reports The Wall Street JournalThe report cites people familiar with the matter as saying the deal is “far from certain.” The New York Times It has also been confirmed that Qualcomm has approached Intel in recent days for a possible acquisition, but no official offer has yet been made.
According to the NYT, Qualcomm and Intel spokespeople declined to comment on the current developments. Recently, Intel’s market capitalization collapsed to $93 billion, with a 60% drop in stock value. In contrast, Qualcomm’s market capitalization has soared to $18 trillion, making it one of the world’s 100 most valuable companies.
After the AI boom, Intel struggled in its foundry business. The company was unable to transition to smaller process nodes, while TSMC made progress with cutting-edge lithography processes. Not to mention, Nvidia became the most valuable company in the world, thanks to the generative AI boom. As a result, Intel lost many customers in the server space as well. Intel’s Gaudi AI accelerator failed to take off.
That being said, the Intel-Qualcomm deal is unlikely to come to fruition as it would attract the attention of regulators around the world. Recently, under the CHIPS Act, Intel received $8.5 billion in subsidies from the U.S. government to build new chip factories.
The US government wants to support domestic semiconductor manufacturing companies to boost semiconductor production and maintain a reliable supply chain in the country. Not to mention that, in the context of geopolitical tensions, the presence of a domestic semiconductor manufacturing company would help the United States maintain its technological independence.
Despite all the doom and gloom, Intel’s client-side business looks set to take on Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon X-series processors. Intel’s new x86-based Lunar Lake chipsets look promising, and with recent reports that the Snapdragon X Elite has underperformed in the market, it looks like Intel might be making up some ground after all.
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