Intel jumps on Google AI deal, Musk chip project

Intel shares have risen 38% since the beginning of April and 65% year to date.

This has lifted the US chipmaker’s market value to about US$326 billion, driven by new AI-related deals and manufacturing moves.

Intel said Google will use its Xeon 6 processors for AI training and inference.

It will also join Terafab, an Austin project to build custom chips for Elon Musk’s companies including SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla.

Earlier this month, Intel bought back the remaining stake in its Ireland chip plant for US$14.2 billion after selling a 49% share in 2024.

Even after the rally, Intel stock remains about 8% below its 2020 peak, while the S&P 500 has risen more than 100% over the same period.

🔗 Source: Calcalist

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

New Intel agreements add to worries that central processing units (CPUs) can slow advanced AI workloads, as Nvidia head of AI infrastructure Dion Harris said 1.
Futurum Group, a technology research firm, expects CPU market growth could outpace graphics processing units (GPUs) by 2028 2.
Google and Intel set a multi-year collaboration to co-design custom infrastructure processing units (IPUs), chips that handle networking, storage, and security so data-center CPUs can focus on computing on Intel Xeon platforms 3.
Intel’s US$14.2 billion buyback of the 49% stake it did not own in Ireland-based Fab 34 would return full control of a plant that makes Intel’s latest Xeon 6 server CPUs, among other products 2.

Intel wins suggest more teams are building balanced AI systems instead of leaning on one chip category 1.
Google runs a mix that includes Intel’s x86-based Xeon CPUs, its own tensor processing unit (TPU) AI accelerators, and its Arm-based Axion CPUs 1.
Using several architectures lets cloud providers pick Intel parts for top single-thread speed or support for older software 3.
Counterpoint Research, a market research firm, expects 90% of AI servers with custom-silicon processors will use the Arm instruction set architecture, a widely used chip design standard 3.