Quick Note: A fast look at Nvidia’s $5B investment in Intel, driven more by politics and foundry than by CPUs and ecosystem.
Nvidia’s $5B investment in Intel wasn’t about chasing CPUs first. It was more like: “we need to make this investment for strategic reasons… now go see what we can get for it.”
Strip it down and the order of priorities seems clear:
1️⃣ Politics first. Align with Washington and back Intel as the U.S. champion.
2️⃣ Show confidence. Inject capital where Intel badly needs it.
3️⃣ Don’t rattle TSMC. Nvidia’s GPU partnership stays untouched.
4️⃣ Then extract value. With those boxes ticked, Jensen’s team asked: what can we get for $5B? The answer: custom x86 CPUs tied to Nvidia’s NVLink.
The deal was born.
This move is less about CPUs — and more about geopolitics, ecosystems, and ultimately about shoring up the U.S. foundry effort, just dressed in different clothes.
Intel will need far more capital to pull off the US foundry ambitions, but Nvidia’s early move sends a signal: Washington, investors, and the broader ecosystem should pay attention. $5B may be a rounding error for Nvidia, but it buys political capital, optionality, and influence at a critical moment.