For years, the AI boom has run through a handful of factory floors in Taiwan. That dependence is starting to look risky enough that even Nvidia and Google are shopping for a backup, and the unlikely name on the list is Intel.
Google has placed an order with Intel to manufacture more than three million of its in-house tensor processing units in 2028, while Nvidia is evaluating Intel’s advanced packaging and its most cutting-edge 18A process for future chips, The Information reported on Monday, citing four people with direct knowledge of the talks. Intel’s shares jumped about 12 per cent on the news.
The driver is scarcity.
TSMC, the Taiwanese giant that manufactures virtually every leading-edge AI chip, is straining to keep up with demand, with the squeeze worst in the advanced-packaging lines that stitch chips and memory together. For the companies designing the world’s most sought-after silicon, relying on a single supplier in a single country has become a strategic liability.
The two approaches differ in seriousness.
