NVIDIA To Invest $5 Billion In Intel To Co-Develop Data Center And PC Chips
Big things are happening at Intel these days, as CEO Lip-Bu Tan looks to transform the chip maker's business model after stumbling a bit in the past few years. The newest development—and one we didn't see coming—is that NVIDIA is investing $5 billion in Intel's common stock at a purchase price of $23.28 per share, which suggests a high level of confidence in Intel's current trajectory.
NVIDIA is also partnering with Intel to co-develop custom data center and PC products, a commitment the two firms said will extend through multiple generations and span hyperscale, enterprise, and consumer markets.
A big part of that entails connecting NVIDIA and Intel architectures using NVLink, the companies stated in a press release. The two firms aim to combine NVIDIA's AI and accelerated computing solutions with Intel's CPU technologies and x86 ecosystem for a new wave of "cutting-edge solutions for customers." Time will tell exactly what that entails.
"AI is powering a new industrial revolution and reinventing every layer of the computing stack—from silicon to systems to software. At the heart of this reinvention is NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture," Huang said in a statement. "This historic collaboration tightly couples NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem—a fusion of two world-class platforms. Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing."
This partnership obviously has huge implications for the broad data center market, though that is not the only focus. On the personal computing side, Intel plans to make x86 system-on-chips (SoCs) with integrated NVIDIA RTX GPU chiplets.
"These new x86 RTX SOCs will power a wide range of PCs that demand integration of world-class CPUs and GPUs," the press release states.
There is massive opportunity there, depending on how ambitious this partnership ends up playing out. For example, AMD has had a stranglehold on the high-end home console market, with its custom chips powering several generations of PlayStation and Xbox hardware. Could Intel and NVIDIA make a run at the same space? Time will tell, but it's worth noting that the less powerful Nintendo Switch with NVIDIA's Tegra hardware inside is one of the best-selling consoles of all time.
Excited to team up with my good friend Jensen to jointly develop multiple generations of custom data center and PC products!
— Lip-Bu Tan (@LipBuTan1) September 18, 2025
Our collaboration brings together the best of @Intel and @nvidia to benefit customers – and shows how vital x86 architecture and NVLink will be in… pic.twitter.com/lnEtmJW73A
"Intel’s x86 architecture has been foundational to modern computing for decades—and we are innovating across our portfolio to enable the workloads of the future," Tan said. "Intel’s leading data center and client computing platforms, combined with our process technology, manufacturing and advanced packaging capabilities, will complement NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing leadership to enable new breakthroughs for the industry. We appreciate the confidence Jensen and the NVIDIA team have placed in us with their investment and look forward to the work ahead as we innovate for customers and grow our business."
This latest deal is another vote of confidence in Intel, which last month secured an $2 billion investment from SoftBank, the majority owner of Arm, also in common stock. Then less a week later, it was announced that the U.S. government was taking an $8.9 billion stake in Intel as part of another common stock deal. All combined, that's $15.9 billion in common stock deals over the past four weeks.
For now, NVIDIA's deal with Intel raises more intriguing questions than it answers, as it opens up the door to a plethora of possibilities. We expect to get a little more clarity later today—both CEOs will conduct a joint webcast today at 10:00 a.m. Pacific (1:00 p.m. Eastern) to discuss the partnership. If you want to tune in, register ahead of time.
