Intel reaches an all-time high amid discussions with Apple regarding foundry services, as the US government's $8.9 billion investment sees a 300% return in just nine months.

      **TL;DR** Intel reached an all-time high after Apple initiated discussions regarding foundry services, enhancing a 330 percent surge since the US government acquired a 10 percent stake. This turnaround was more influenced by geopolitical pressures for domestic chip production than by Intel’s manufacturing capabilities.

      In April 2025, Intel's stock traded at $18. The company had dismissed its CEO three months prior, completely lost the AI chip competition to Nvidia—so severely that analysts no longer included it in competitive analyses—and was primarily considered in financial circles as a candidate for acquisition or disassembly. Just fourteen months later, on Tuesday, Intel achieved an all-time high following Bloomberg's report that Apple is in initial talks to utilize Intel's foundry for chip production for its American devices. The stock soared by 14 percent in one day, marking a 175 percent increase this year and over 330 percent since the US government acquired the 10 percent stake in August. This recovery is unprecedented in the semiconductor industry and was not solely the result of Intel’s actions.

      **The Stake**

      In August 2025, the US government invested $8.9 billion in Intel by acquiring 433 million shares at $20.47 each. This funding was sourced from $5.7 billion in unfulfilled CHIPS Act grants converted into equity, alongside $3.2 billion from the Secure Enclave defense program. The government received a 9.9 percent ownership with no board representation or governance rights, committing instead to vote alongside Intel’s board on shareholder matters. Additionally, it obtained a five-year warrant to purchase an extra five percent at $20 per share, contingent on Intel divesting a majority of its foundry business. That investment is now valued at approximately $36 billion, reflecting a more than 300 percent return in nine months on an investment that lacked explicit trading intentions in Washington.

      The government's investment was not merely financial but strategic. Intel possesses the only advanced semiconductor fabrication facilities on US soil. In contrast, TSMC holds 64 percent of the global foundry market, producing nearly all of Apple’s, Nvidia’s, and AMD’s cutting-edge chips in Taiwan. The concentration of critical technology supply chains on an island merely 130 kilometers from mainland China has been characterized by national security officials as the most significant risk to American industrial capabilities. The CHIPS Act aimed to mitigate that risk, and the equity stake was intended to guarantee Intel's viability until the CHIPS Act investments would yield results.

      **The Turnaround**

      Lip-Bu Tan succeeded Pat Gelsinger as CEO in March 2025, three months after Gelsinger was dismissed due to a contentious meeting focusing on Intel’s inability to compete against Nvidia in the AI chip sector. Tan, an experienced semiconductor investor and former Intel board member, took over a company that had lost over 60 percent of its market cap within a year. He eliminated 15,000 jobs, separated the foundry business into its own subsidiary, and aligned engineering efforts towards the 18A process node, the most advanced manufacturing technology in Intel's lineup, and the first leading-edge process developed entirely in the US.

      Results materialized more swiftly than anticipated. In the first quarter of 2026, Intel reported revenues of $13.6 billion, exceeding Wall Street's expectation of $12.3 billion. Earnings per share registered at $0.29 versus a forecast of $0.01, resulting in a dramatic 24 percent stock jump in a single day, marking its best performance since 1987. Revenue from data centers and AI surged 22 percent year over year to $5.1 billion as demand for CPUs increased alongside the move towards agent-based AI workloads requiring capabilities beyond those of Nvidia’s GPUs. Foundry revenue rose 16 percent to $5.4 billion. Under Tan's leadership, Intel has exceeded expectations for six consecutive quarters.

      **The Apple Question**

      According to Bloomberg, Apple is in early discussions with Intel and Samsung regarding the production of some of its M-series processors in a strategy termed "Taiwan plus one." Since exiting Samsung’s foundry in 2016, Apple has relied solely on TSMC. Tim Cook's $600 billion commitment to American manufacturing, unveiled earlier this year under the American Manufacturing Program, created the political incentive and strategic framework for diversifying into a domestic foundry. Intel's 18A process, a 1.8-nanometer-class node expected to ship in late 2026, is the first US manufacturing technology theoretically equipped to produce Apple's chips.

      These discussions remain preliminary, and no orders have been confirmed. Apple has expressed internal concerns regarding whether Intel’s yields and performance can rival TSMC’s output. Analysts suggest the most probable scenario is for Apple to utilize Intel for the lower-end M-series components, such as those in the MacBook Air and base iPad models, instead of the flagship processors in the iPhone and MacBook Pro. Should Apple transfer