President Trump Announces Apple and Intel Chip Collaboration

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
Bloomberg Tech is live from the heart of Silicon Valley with Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.

**Ed Ludlow** (0:14)
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. President Trump posts about a chip agreement between Apple and Intel. Sending Intel soaring will have the details. Plus, we speak with the CEO of Anduril after the company wins a production contract for autonomous fighters with the US Air Force. And SpaceX shares full for a second straight day after a 49% jump still in high orbit, as the company concludes its first full week of trading. Thursday, June 18th, Bloomberg Tech. Intel is at a record high after the president of the United States posted a very long truth social, which included a reference to an agreement between Intel and Apple for chip design and chip manufacturing.
Simple story, there is some background to it that Bloomberg News has reported in the past. It also talked about NVIDIA, Terra Fab and a lot more, but it didn't tell where we focus, and Bloomberg's Ian King is with us, along with Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Analyst, Sandeep Singh, and we're going to start with Ian.
An agreement. What do we know? What do we not know?

**Ian King** (1:26)
Well, we've previously reported that Apple was exploring using Intel as a second source for manufacturing some of its chips.
What the president is saying, and we have to be careful because not everything he says immediately comes true, that this has actually reached a firmer stage. And if that's the case, and that's clearly a boost for Intel's efforts to become a manufacturer for other companies.

**Ed Ludlow** (1:50)
Ian, really quickly, you reported with Mark and Ryan in May, that Apple was looking at its options. Explain the basics of that report.

**Ian King** (1:59)
That's right. Right now, Apple is completely dependent upon TSMC for manufacturing. So obviously, that's the choke point, something that they wish they would like to have a solution to, have options.
So you would look at Samsung and you would look at Intel as potential backups or potential supplemental manufacturers. And that's what we understand is going on. Apple has always been smart about the supply chain.

**Ed Ludlow** (2:23)
That's the reporting in the details. Let's get the analysis. Mandeep Singh, who leads our technology research team at Bloomberg Intelligence. What are you making of this? Right. Ian outlined that actually in May, there was a sense that Apple was looking at options. But you have the President of the United States saying there's an agreement.
How much can you model for that? The President's statement.

**Sandeep Singh** (2:45)
Look, I mean, there is no doubt that Intel is now well positioned to be a double-digit revenue growth company, given what we have seen so far with the CPU demand that has taken off with agentic AI. And now, you know, the fab side of things would get a real kicker for if Apple was to use it for manufacturing. And you know, when you have one design, it follows with, you know, multiple companies that want to use your manufacturing. And that's where it could be very exciting if actually Apple ends up ramping up in volume here.

**Ed Ludlow** (3:26)
I note that Apple shares are up a percentage point. Tim Cook, the CEO, the outgoing CEO, soon to be executive chairman of Apple, gave an interview to Wall Street Journal where he said they're going to have to raise prices because of the commodity environment. But what do you interpret here, Mandeep, on the Apple side of this story with Intel, their ability to kind of re-industrialize here in America on the chip side?

**Sandeep Singh** (3:50)
Well, look, right now when I look at TSMC's capacity, NVIDIA has already prepaid what, $120 billion for TSMC capacity. So even an Apple which used to get preferential treatment at TSMC right now, I think they're feeling that NVIDIA probably has a bigger lock-in in terms of TSMC manufacturing capacity. And from an Apple standpoint, I think diversification and really appeasing the president here makes a ton of sense.
So from that perspective, I think TSMC's monopoly is a problem for a lot of their big customers, including Apple. And it makes sense that they're looking to diversify here.

**Ed Ludlow** (4:35)
Ian, finally to you, there's kind of two parts to Intel's Foundry story. There's the process, the technology process, and then the sort of solidity of whether they have any customers. Where are they at with both of those things?

**Ian King** (4:48)
Right. What they've said is that their process is getting better and better, getting closer to the industry standard, which would be TSMC yield being very important there, the amount of good chips you make for a production run.