Nvidia to Invest $5 Billion in Intel and Help Co-Developing x86 Chips With RTX GPUs

Nvidia announced today a new partnership with Intel to co-design new x86 chips for data centers and consumer PCs. Following recent investments from the US government and Softbank into the chip maker, Nvidia will also invest $5 billion in Intel common stock.

“The companies will focus on seamlessly connecting NVIDIA and Intel architectures using NVIDIA NVLink – integrating the strengths of NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing with Intel’s leading CPU technologies and x86 ecosystem to deliver cutting-edge solutions for customers,” the two companies said in a joint press release.

For enterprise customers, Intel will be manufacturing custom x86 CPUs that Nvidia will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms. For consumers, however, Intel and Nvidia will be co-developing new x86 chips with integrated Nvidia RTX GPUs. “These new x86 RTX SOCs will power a wide range of PCs that demand integration of world-class CPUs and GPUs,” the two companies said.

In recent years, Intel has been developing its own Arc GPUs to compete with Nvidia’s GeForce and AMD’s Radeon products, but results have been mixed so far. Pairing Nvidia RTX GPUs with its own CPU technology may help Intel to better compete with AMD. “These new x86 RTX SOCs will power a wide range of PCs that demand integration of world-class CPUs and GPUs,” the press release reads.

It’s interesting to see Nvidia co-develop x86 chips with Intel as the company is also reportedly working on its own ARM-based chips for Windows PCs. Qualcomm has been the exclusive chip supplier for ARM-based PCs for many years now, but that could change soon as MediaTek is expected to release an ARM chip for PCs later in 2025.