NVIDIA Teases Potential Partnership with Intel for Next-Gen Chip Production

Written by Boldson on 09 December 2023. Posted in Hardware

During the recent UBS Global Technology Conference, NVIDIA's Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress hinted at the possibility of a partnership with Intel Foundry Services for the production of next-generation chips.

Currently, a significant portion of NVIDIA's Data Center GPUs for AI/HPC and Gaming chips is manufactured by TSMC. However, just one generation ago, Samsung was responsible for building NVIDIA's Gaming GPUs. Samsung played a crucial role in developing Ampere, NVIDIA's GPU family that powers the GeForce RTX 30 "Gaming" graphics cards. Samsung is now aiming to play a more prominent role in NVIDIA's data center revenue, making it a close partner to Team Green.

While TSMC is expected to remain a key partner for NVIDIA in producing Hopper H200 and Blackwell B100 GPUs, NVIDIA is open to expanding its ecosystem of foundry partners. Kress expressed the company's openness to having a third foundry partner, with Intel being a potential candidate. Kress stated, "Would we love a third one? Sure. We would love a third one."

Samsung Foundry has made significant strides in refining its processes and collaborating with NVIDIA over the past two years, making it a reliable supplier. Samsung's extensive range of equipment for semiconductor, memory, and packaging stages gives NVIDIA flexibility and options for its chip production.

Industry sources have mentioned Intel as a potential foundry partner for NVIDIA, and even NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Huang, has hinted at using Intel's Foundries for upcoming chips. A partnership with NVIDIA would be significant for Intel as the company seeks to expand its portfolio of IFS partners.

Having US-based foundry partners would also benefit NVIDIA and other major chip manufacturers such as AMD and Intel, which rely on TSMC for certain components. However, NVIDIA's CEO believes that achieving supply chain independence in the US is still decades away, and bringing TSMC and other major fabs to the US would be a crucial first step toward that goal.