Big news. Wow!
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the long run, but the details of the collaboration say a few things up front:
1) This is purely a collaboration on products, not to fab Nvidia GPUs on IFS (although I’m guessing the final packaging may be at Intel). You take an Intel chiplet with integrated NVLink and join it with an Nvidia GPU with NVLink, not unlike GB10.
2) This gives Nvidia another avenue to push AI PC to the market outside of the late to market GB10. I’m guessing Jensen is not happy at how their WOA effort has stagnated.
3) These products will take years before they hit the market, and $5B is a paltry amount over the span of a few years. It’s not hard to imagine that the cash infusion is mainly to curry favor with the Trump administration given the administration’s now desire to prop up Intel (the US Government owning Intel shares sure does make the interests intertwined).
4) Will Intel give up on their own GPU ambitions? Does Nvidia think their GPU tech is so desirable that the consumer would rather choose an Intel CPU with an attached Nvidia GPU over an Intel CPU+GPU SoC? I don’t see massive volumes of this collaborative product, which leads me to feel like this deal is mostly performative.