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Intel is getting closer to making chips for Nvidia

The possibility that Intel gets to make some Nvidia chips is getting closer and closer, according to Network World. It’s been over a year since Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he was open to Intel making his company’s GPUs through Intel’s manufacturing and manufacturing services program. But without specifying much. He just said they were valuing it.

But now, during a question-and-answer session at the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, Huang doesn’t seem so evasive anymore. The executive, in fact, has stated that he has recently received very good results from an Intel test chip, based on the company’s next-generation process node.

Thus, Huang has stressed that «fWe also open with Samsung, and we are open to do so with Intel. Your CEO has said in the past that we are evaluating the process, and we recently received chip test results for your next-generation process, and the results look good.«.

This fact, that they are already at the point of test chip development, indicates that Nvidia is much further along in the process of bringing part of their manufacturing process to Intel is much further along than expected. Also that they could be close to reaching a final product. But the agreement, if it happens, still has many issues and questions in the air.

Huang did not specify which Nvidia architecture designs the test chips were built on. Nor which process node was tested. Intel is currently manufacturing chips of what it calls Intel 4, that is, with 4 nanometer transistors. At the end of this year he hopes to do it already with Intel 3, that is, with 3 nanometer transistors. Processes with Intel 20A (with 2.0 nanometer transistors) and with Intel 18A (with 1.8 nanometer transistors) will arrive next year.

The Nvidia CEO has also highlighted that Nvidia’s supply chain is designed to achieve “maximum diversity and redundancy, in order to have resilience«, and that they manufacture «in so many points” as they can. Even so, Nvidia relies heavily on TSMC, which is based in Taiwan, a territory that is experiencing serious problems due to China’s ambition to seize control of the island.

This makes the search for a chip supplier outside the island one of Nvidia’s priorities, something that is also happening with the rest of TSMC’s clients. Because even if the company were not worried about the threats from China becoming a reality, they are at the limit of their capacity. In addition, chip making requires a huge supply of water, and Taiwan has been suffering from a major drought for years, making chip production difficult.

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