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It’s too late. It was too late 18 months ago. Nvidia is over 30x bigger. Qualcomm is 2x, AMD is 2x. Intel needs a world beater, like tomorrow. Qualcomm off

It’s too late. It was too late 18 months ago. Nvidia is over 30x bigger. Qualcomm is 2x, AMD is 2x. Intel needs a world beater, like tomorrow. Qualcomm offered to buy them, no idea what the terms are but he’d have to beat those terms, right? That had to be the death blow. AMD has already shipped ARM parts in the recentish time frame (Opteron A1100) there are rumors that they have internal arm projects that can be ready quickly. All the other part makers are all in with ARM. Intel is on an island. Throw the customization that MS and AWS are doing, unless they have something magical, tomorrow, it’s just hard to see.

tw04 2y ago
> All the other part makers are all in with ARM. Intel is on an island. Intel also has an ARM architecture license… they sold Marvell the Xscale assets, but retained rights to produce ARM chips should they desire to do so in the future. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  Sure, but then they're competing with everyone else in a fair fight. Which means either taking a huge hit on margins, or having a product with enough of a performance delta to justify prices somewhere near today's. The problem isn't so much x64 vs ARM but that, more broadly, high-performance CPUs are becoming commoditised.
  - bfrog 2y ago
    Which is why Pat was on the right track imho with foundry. It’s too bad he won’t have the tenure needed to see the outcome of 18a, good or bad. Even Arm is tenuous at best with risc-v right on its heels.
nwiswell 2y ago
> It’s too late. It was too late 18 months ago. Nvidia is over 30x bigger. Qualcomm is 2x, AMD is 2x. AMD came back from odds much longer than this. At its nadir, AMD's market cap was about a billion. A billion! Jensen's jacket collection is worth more than that. Anyway, it's not looking good for Intel but it's certainly not "too late".
- TheCondor 2y ago
  If they can dominate with process, no it’s not too late. If their process is on par with TSMC? I don’t know. Like I said, they need a world beater else margins erode dramatically. They have assets, they have value and Intel has done it again and again for decades but unless there is something that is a tier better than anything else margins drop and they just forced their “technical CEO” out. They have had ultra success in the past, I don’t see anything on the roadmap to suggest a repeat of that, there is a lot of institutional memory of that success. With a long term plan, a board that is knows it’s going to be a journey and the CHIPS money, there is a story, make X86S a reality… I think there will be incredible pressure to cut and sell it though. If the new fabrication technology is only as good as the competition, I think that makes Intel an even more attractive take over target for the fabless giants
- swifthesitation 2y ago
  > nadir Great word, TIL.
bsder 2y ago
> It’s too late. Hardly. Intel has fabs and, as we found out from Covid, we don't have capacity in old nodes either. Intel can very much still print money. Fabless companies are really cool--until shit hits the fan and nobody will run your chips anymore--but, hey, who cares, it's not like that ever happens, right? I mean you'd have to get an enemy invasion or terrorist bombing or tsunami or earthquake or fire in the fab line or global pandemic--and, pfft, how common are those, really? All it takes is some high-level dumbass trying to curry favor with Pooh Bear over Taiwan and suddenly Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, etc. have a net value of zero for the forseeable future. But, hey, it's super more profitable to not actually have all that icky manufacturing. Ewwwwwww.
- Panzer04 2y ago
  Yup. Fabless is also totally dependant on churning out good designs. Intel's current gen chips are fine, compared to AMDs. Not great, not terrible, just competitive. The reason Intel are worth less is because investors are actually assigning negative value to their fabs - until they see Intel churning out advanced chips again it's just a money pit.
  - rvba 2y ago
    They arent fine. Intel seems to be cutting corners to be faster what made their tech full of security issues. Now those issues are fixed by microcode.. and chips become less efficient. They also oxidize?
  - immibis 2y ago
    Are AMD chips wearing out after a few years?
- mnau 2y ago
  > suddenly Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, etc. have a net value of zero for the forseeable future. That is an exaggeration. There is still Samsung, Nvidia even fabbed there few years back. It's worse than TSMC, but it's not like Intel is the only alternative.
rsanek 2y ago
definitely not too late. plenty of cases in tech where worse comebacks were achieved. amd is a good example mentioned elsewhere in the thread. jobs brought apple back after it was months away from bankruptcy. even Nvidia itself was close to being fucked when its cuda bet was early and wasn't paying off yet -- Jensen talks about this in interviews
mahkeiro 2y ago
Market cap are by no means an indicator of the future of a company! I bought AMD shares when their market cap was 20x smaller than today and everyone was telling me that AMD didn't stand a single chance vs Intel. I'm pretty sure that you were that guy then.
deleted 2y ago
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tw04 2y ago

> All the other part makers are all in with ARM. Intel is on an island. Intel also has an ARM architecture license… they sold Marvell the Xscale assets, but retained rights to produce ARM chips should they desire to do so in the future. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale

Earw0rm 2y ago
Sure, but then they're competing with everyone else in a fair fight. Which means either taking a huge hit on margins, or having a product with enough of a performance delta to justify prices somewhere near today's. The problem isn't so much x64 vs ARM but that, more broadly, high-performance CPUs are becoming commoditised.
- bfrog 2y ago
  Which is why Pat was on the right track imho with foundry. It’s too bad he won’t have the tenure needed to see the outcome of 18a, good or bad. Even Arm is tenuous at best with risc-v right on its heels.

nwiswell 2y ago

> It’s too late. It was too late 18 months ago. Nvidia is over 30x bigger. Qualcomm is 2x, AMD is 2x. AMD came back from odds much longer than this. At its nadir, AMD's market cap was about a billion. A billion! Jensen's jacket collection is worth more than that. Anyway, it's not looking good for Intel but it's certainly not "too late".

TheCondor 2y ago
If they can dominate with process, no it’s not too late. If their process is on par with TSMC? I don’t know. Like I said, they need a world beater else margins erode dramatically. They have assets, they have value and Intel has done it again and again for decades but unless there is something that is a tier better than anything else margins drop and they just forced their “technical CEO” out. They have had ultra success in the past, I don’t see anything on the roadmap to suggest a repeat of that, there is a lot of institutional memory of that success. With a long term plan, a board that is knows it’s going to be a journey and the CHIPS money, there is a story, make X86S a reality… I think there will be incredible pressure to cut and sell it though. If the new fabrication technology is only as good as the competition, I think that makes Intel an even more attractive take over target for the fabless giants
swifthesitation 2y ago
> nadir Great word, TIL.

bsder 2y ago

> It’s too late. Hardly. Intel has fabs and, as we found out from Covid, we don't have capacity in old nodes either. Intel can very much still print money. Fabless companies are really cool--until shit hits the fan and nobody will run your chips anymore--but, hey, who cares, it's not like that ever happens, right? I mean you'd have to get an enemy invasion or terrorist bombing or tsunami or earthquake or fire in the fab line or global pandemic--and, pfft, how common are those, really? All it takes is some high-level dumbass trying to curry favor with Pooh Bear over Taiwan and suddenly Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, etc. have a net value of zero for the forseeable future. But, hey, it's super more profitable to not actually have all that icky manufacturing. Ewwwwwww.

Panzer04 2y ago
Yup. Fabless is also totally dependant on churning out good designs. Intel's current gen chips are fine, compared to AMDs. Not great, not terrible, just competitive. The reason Intel are worth less is because investors are actually assigning negative value to their fabs - until they see Intel churning out advanced chips again it's just a money pit.
- rvba 2y ago
  They arent fine. Intel seems to be cutting corners to be faster what made their tech full of security issues. Now those issues are fixed by microcode.. and chips become less efficient. They also oxidize?
- immibis 2y ago
  Are AMD chips wearing out after a few years?
mnau 2y ago
> suddenly Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, etc. have a net value of zero for the forseeable future. That is an exaggeration. There is still Samsung, Nvidia even fabbed there few years back. It's worse than TSMC, but it's not like Intel is the only alternative.

rsanek 2y ago

definitely not too late. plenty of cases in tech where worse comebacks were achieved. amd is a good example mentioned elsewhere in the thread. jobs brought apple back after it was months away from bankruptcy. even Nvidia itself was close to being fucked when its cuda bet was early and wasn't paying off yet -- Jensen talks about this in interviews

mahkeiro 2y ago

Market cap are by no means an indicator of the future of a company! I bought AMD shares when their market cap was 20x smaller than today and everyone was telling me that AMD didn't stand a single chance vs Intel. I'm pretty sure that you were that guy then.

deleted 2y ago

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