This sort of microcontroller for bringup and/or power in a large processor/SoC is not surprising at all. Intel ME is used for large scale setup and provisioning

This sort of microcontroller for bringup and/or power in a large processor/SoC is not surprising at all. Intel ME is used for large scale setup and provisioning of new machines and is probably worth every penny to their OEM customers. I'm not saying that the NSA isn't possibly using it as a backdoor, but to say that the whole ME subsystem was created because they were paid off by the NSA is a bit far fetched.