Apple and Intel have reached an initial chip manufacturing agreement.
On May 8th, Eastern Time in the United States, according to The Wall Street Journal, after more than a year of intense negotiations, Apple and Intel have reached a preliminary chip manufacturing agreement.
It is still unclear which chip Intel will produce for Apple. Neither the company nor Apple has officially commented on this matter. The specific details of the agreement, such as the production timeline and process nodes, still need to be confirmed by the official. However, according to some informed sources, in the initial stage of the cooperation, Intel is likely to prioritize producing the low-end M-series chips for iPads and entry-level Macs. Later on, it is expected to expand to the A-series chips for regular iPhones.
After the announcement was made, the capital market reacted strongly. On the closing day of the stock market on May 8th, the share price of Intel soared by 13.96%, and since April, its cumulative increase has exceeded 200%, with its market value exceeding 630 billion US dollars. The share price of Apple also rose by 2.05% simultaneously. The market cast a vote of confidence in its strategy of diversifying supply chains. However, the share price of TSMC declined under pressure. The expectation that its exclusive contract manufacturing position would weaken continued to intensify.
The successful implementation of this cooperation could not have been possible without the strong leadership of the US government. In the summer of 2025, the US government transferred approximately 9 billion US dollars in federal subsidies to Intel stocks, holding 10% of its shares and becoming an important shareholder of Intel. Over the past year, the US Secretary of Commerce has met with Apple CEO Tim Cook multiple times, and Trump even personally lobbied at the White House, directly facilitating the breakthrough in negotiations between the two parties. The core goal of the US government is to support Intel to become the "national champion" of US semiconductors, promote the return of advanced chip manufacturing to the US, reduce reliance on overseas production capacity, and strengthen the security of the local semiconductor industry chain.
For Apple, cooperation is a crucial step in diversifying supply chain risks. For a long time, Apple's A-series and M-series chips have been 100% outsourced to TSMC for production, making TSMC its second-largest customer. However, with the rise of the AI trend, Nvidia replaced Apple as TSMC's largest customer, and the production capacity of advanced processes (N3/N2) was largely seized. The iPhone 17 series once suffered from supply restrictions due to chip shortages. At the same time, the geopolitical risks of a single supply chain have continued to emerge, and seeking a stable second-tier manufacturing source has become an inevitable choice for Apple to ensure production capacity and optimize costs.
For Intel, securing the Apple contract is the key breakthrough for the revival of its foundry business. After the new CEO Chen Liwu takes office in 2025, he has designated the wafer foundry business as the core of the transformation and will fully benchmark against TSMC. In recent years, Intel has accelerated the research and development of advanced processes such as 18A and 14A, and has a plan to mass-produce 14A in 2028, enabling it to have the technical capability to handle Apple's orders.
Another positive news that has driven up Intel's stock price comes from Musk. On May 9th, Musk posted a message stating that he was invited to visit Intel's wafer factory in Oregon, expressing great honor and looking forward to deep cooperation with SpaceX and Tesla.
What Musk visited was the Intel Hillsboro core wafer factory in Oregon. This factory is undergoing modernization and is equipped with advanced chip manufacturing processes. It is a key component of Intel's domestic production capacity matrix in the United States. This visit was not accidental. As early as 2024, the Intel CEO had invited Musk. Now, with Intel joining the Terafab project in April 2026, the cooperation between the two parties has entered a substantive stage. This visit is a crucial step for Musk to conduct a field investigation of Intel's capabilities.
What Musk visited was the Intel Hillsboro core wafer factory in Oregon. This factory is undergoing modernization and is equipped with advanced chip manufacturing processes. It is a key component of Intel's domestic production capacity matrix in the United States. This visit was not accidental. As early as 2024, the Intel CEO had invited Musk. Now, with Intel joining the Terafab project in April 2026, the cooperation between the two parties has entered a substantive stage. This visit is a crucial step for Musk to conduct a field investigation of Intel's capabilities.
It is claimed that Musk's collaboration with Intel mainly focused on the Terafab semiconductor project. Intel, leveraging its 14A advanced technology, provided support for chip design, manufacturing, and packaging; SpaceX advanced the project to achieve large-scale implementation, meeting the chip demands in the space sector; Tesla focused on the ground scenario, customizing chips for autonomous driving and humanoid robots, and building a research-level wafer factory. The goal was to fill the gap in high-end chip production capacity, achieving an annual output of 1 terawatt computing power, while meeting the chip demands of both Tesla and SpaceX in both the ground and space domains.
At present, both parties have finalized the core cooperation framework. Intel has clearly joined the Terafab project. Musk disclosed in the recent Tesla earnings call that the details of the Terafab project deployment are still being refined. In the short term, Tesla will first advance the construction of a research-level factory, while SpaceX is responsible for the initial implementation of the project. Additionally, SpaceX has secretly submitted an IPO application. If it is successfully listed, it will provide more sufficient financial support for this cooperation project and further accelerate the implementation of the cooperation.
BEIJING 
ENGLISH 
USA 
DEUTSCH 
FRENCH 
JAPAN 
SPANISH 
AUSTRALIA
