[elric]

Intel being on life support is a bit of a stretch. They are investing an awful lot of money, and it's going to take time for those investments to pay off.

I worry more about their inept handling of recent CPU bugs than I do about their stock price or reduced dividends.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

> They are investing an awful lot of money,

That was my impression, until the news came out that they had a massive round of layoffs. That looks like the opposite of investing, poisons the climate, causes people who can to seek greener pastures (potentially further disrupting those projects they allegedly invest into), ...

I'm sure there were other bad news that caused their stock drop from $30 to $20, and it's hard to separate the impact of the layoff from those, but I wouldn't be surprised if the layoff news (that generally tend to push stock values up for companies in a different situation) contributed to it (due to lowering confidence that the investments will happen and work out).

[ac29]

The investments OP is referring to are almost certainly the CapEx investments related to opening new fabs and the aggressive push to launch new leading edge nodes.

Yes, layoffs suck, but Intel seems to be in a position where something had to give, and giving up on building a leading edge fab would almost certainly lead to a death spiral. Additionally, Intel was and still is a huge company. They have more employees than TSMC & AMD combined (an imperfect comparison, but probably as close as one can get).

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

> the aggressive push to launch new leading edge nodes

Doesn't that need R&D though (i.e. people, and preferably motivated ones)?

[ac29]

After the layoffs, Intel will have ~100k employees.

Also, unless you know some non-public information, its not clear they are laying off anyone doing R&D. The only specific groups mentioned in the layoff memo are sales & marketing.

[refulgentis]

I felt this was strongly, and felt incredibly sure of that, until I read Stratechery on it last week: https://stratechery.com/2024/intel-honesty/

It slipped by me how much AMD eating a little more every quarter really added up over the last ~5 years. (~9% to ~50% of datacenter revenue)

Also, the foundry stuff just isn't working as a financial exercise: they can't split it out as a division and massively subsidize it and seem responsible. And there's ~0 light on the horizon. No one wants to use it, even Intel is falling back to using TSMC's leading nodes now, which is letting it tread water against ARM in laptops.

If their confusing plan to do 5 nodes in 2 years or whatever works out, that'd enable them to start reversing the tide: they'd still have to build the same muscles TSMC has from always being a foundry, like having generic designs that are already in the market available, and convince people to switch suppliers, which is always risky, and usually done over years.

[chx]

I really do not know, there's reporting of Broadcom working with Intel to eventually produce on 18A this of course was spinned as if Broadcom was disappointed 18A is not yet production ready because clicks are a must. It wasn't supposed to kick into high volume until 2025. https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-manufacturing-busin...

> The tests conducted by Broadcom involved sending silicon wafers - the foot-wide discs on which chips are printed - through Intel's most advanced manufacturing process known as 18A, the sources said. Broadcom received the wafers back from Intel last month. After its engineers and executives studied the results, the company concluded the manufacturing process is not yet viable to move to high-volume production.

and

> A Broadcom spokesperson said the company is "evaluating the product and service offerings of Intel Foundry and have not concluded that evaluation."

The make or break is not this summer. It's next. Gelsinger himself said he bet the company on 18A. If it doesn't work out then yeah, Intel is in very deep trouble but until then, Intel still has 29B cash on hand which is not chump change.

It's not that I stan for Intel, the heck do I care, I dislike the reporting that goes around this topic.

[Alupis]

Intel is a tarnished brand, sullied by unfixable bugs, suicidal chips, security holes, poorly executed "next gen" ideas, and worse. The only thing they're capable of these days, seemingly, is re-releasing slightly optimized, nearly two decade-old architecture... The people who actually choose their CPU (gamers for the most part) have abandoned Intel in droves. Intel is floundering at an epic scale, and showing no end in sight.

Can their long term investments bear fruit? One might hope... but continuing to flail helplessly in the face of the first actual competition in decades may not allow them to harvest that crop effectively.

The near two-decade vacation Intel took from actually being good is insane in hindsight. They thought their competition was dead (due to Intel's own illegal behavior), so they just kept copy/pasting the same garbage over and over, shoveling it to the population with ever increasing price tags (anyone remember the days of $5,000-$10,000+ "gaming" CPU's?).

If any company deserves to fail, it is Intel. Their story is simultaneously hilarious and sad.

[gloryjulio]

AMD almost went bankrupt until xbox and ps apus saved them. Intel just need a chance to reform

[Alupis]

AMD almost went bankrupt because of Intel's illegal behavior.

Intel received a small slap on the wrist, shrugged it off, and then proceeded to do nothing with their illegally-won cleared playing field (making what is perhaps the single biggest business blunder in human history - they effectively were left with zero competition, and squandered the opportunity).

Meanwhile, AMD got scrappy and found a way to bounce back, and today is slowly swallowing Intel whole, one inch at a time.

Does Intel have two decades of runway to recover? I guess we're going to all find out together...

[paulmd]

Wasn’t that judgement recently vacated for failing to prove the case, though?

[Alupis]

No? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....

[paulmd]

That’s not the case that’s normally referenced, why don’t you cite the 1991 case while you’re at it ;)

[cyberax]

> AMD almost went bankrupt because of Intel's illegal behavior.

Nope. AMD at the time had been outcompeted by Intel in most areas. They survived as a cheaper alternative for Intel.

[Alupis]

Rewriting history does not change history.

[whamlastxmas]

It’s not even a rewrite, there’s no evidence provided.

[b112]

I worry about selling off large chunks of their business for short term stock gains, and halting modernization and new fab builds. It's just weird. Upper management is panicking, totally the wrong message to send.

[crop_rotation]

But the article mentions that capital spending is down. Their revenue is also not really growing to support even bigger investments. Government subsidy will only take them so far. And they have stronger competitors in almost every domain they compete in.

[elric]

Sure, but the new fabs take time to build and spin up. I don't know how exactly they spend that money, but I'm guessing a large amount is up front (acquiring land and starting construction etc), so it doesn't seem impossible that spending slows down once construction is well under way?

[ThinkBeat]

Most of the money Intel is investing now is thanks to giant state sponsorship.