Intel and Nvidia's superchip plans blend CPUs, GPUs, and big money

Nvidia's $5 billion Intel deal is starting to look like a bargain

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Looking ahead: Intel and Nvidia have officially formalized their long-rumored partnership, locking in a $5 billion stock deal that ties the two chipmakers together just as the AI boom reshapes the industry. While the most interesting outcomes remain years away, Nvidia is already sitting on a sizable paper gain.

Regulatory filings confirm that Nvidia has acquired roughly 215 million Intel shares at a fixed price of $23.28 per share, a transaction approved by the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month. The deal was first agreed to in September by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

Intel's stock has climbed sharply since then. Shares closed at $36.68 on Monday and were trading near $38 at the time of writing, pushing the value of Nvidia's stake well above its original $5 billion investment. While those gains remain unrealized, they underscore how quickly market sentiment around Intel has shifted.

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Beyond the financial upside, the agreement lays the groundwork for deeper technical collaboration. Intel and Nvidia say they plan to co-develop shared platforms and system-on-chip designs across "multiple generations," targeting both data center infrastructure and consumer PCs.

The data center side of the partnership is expected to come first. The companies plan to use NVLink, Nvidia's high-bandwidth interconnect, to enable tighter integration between Nvidia GPUs and Intel's x86 CPUs. The goal is to offer alternatives to existing CPU-GPU pairings that rely on PCI Express, particularly for AI workloads that demand faster data movement.

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On the consumer side, Intel and Nvidia have signaled interest in SoC-style designs that combine Intel CPUs with Nvidia RTX graphics. If realized, those chips could directly challenge AMD's APUs by offering discrete-class GPU features in more compact and affordable systems.

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Another noteworthy aspect of the Intel - Nvidia deal is the regulatory response, or lack thereof.

The FTC's approval of the stock deal stands in stark contrast to Nvidia's failed attempt to acquire Arm in 2021, which regulators blocked over competition concerns. At the time, Chairman Lina Khan argued that the merger would hinder market competition and technological progress in data center and automotive markets.

The current FTC, influenced by the Trump-era leadership, has taken a very different approach. This time, regulators appear comfortable with a minority stake and a collaborative roadmap rather than outright ownership.

For now, the partnership is more promise than product. But with Nvidia deepening its ties to Intel, both financially and technologically, the companies are positioning themselves for a future where CPUs and GPUs are no longer developed in isolation.