Intel CEO confirms Intel and Nvidia collaboration on new products is actively progressing

Lip-Bu Tan says 'Intel and Nvidia are collaborating to develop exciting new products' and I'm wondering what they could possibly be

Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, was recently awarded an honorary doctorate in science and technology from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Intel's CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, was the one to give Huang his doctoral hood. At the same time, Tan took the opportunity to affirm that Intel and Nvidia are working on new products. In the post congratulating Jensen Huang, Tan says, "Intel and Nvidia are collaborating to develop exciting new products!" We have known about collaboration between the two companies for some time. Late last year, Intel and Nvidia announced combined CPU and GPU products for use in both consumer PCs and AI servers. To add to this, Nvidia took a $5 billion stake in Intel. And just last month, there was a rumour that some future Nvidia AI GPUs will use Intel Foundry technology for some of their components. So this new statement only adds to the sudden companionship between the two now financially-linked companies. It's even currently suggested that Intel's Serpent Lake will be its first collaboration chip with Nvidia. This chip is supposed to be going super heavy on the GPU for AI workloads and will reportedly have Nvidia's next-gen Rubin GPU technology and will support LPDDR6 memory. Memory crisis be damned. Nvidia can no longer rely on Chinese trade, due in part to global tensions, and diversifying production away from TSMC doesn't seem like an awful move with that in mind. The US Government has also made it clear that it prefers chips made on US soil. All of this is a far cry from how bad things looked for Intel just a few years ago. But things have been looking a bit more hopeful for the company as of late. Panther Lake testing shows that its latest mobile chips are surprisingly performant and power efficient. Late last year, the US Government gave financial support to the company, with it taking even more if Intel lost control of its chip manufacturing business, so it's in both Intel's and the US Government's interest for both to thrive. Working with Nvidia, being a company worth $5 trillion, seems like a pretty good way of making that happen. Though whether this relationship amounts to much is yet to be seen.

Intel CEO confirms ongoing collaboration with NVIDIA on new products

What started as a congratulatory social media post turned into one of the industry's more significant moments this week. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan posted on X to acknowledge NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang receiving an honorary doctorate in science and technology at Carnegie Mellon University, but also used the moment to publicly confirm that the two companies are still actively developing products together. It is the clearest public signal of forward progress since the partnership was announced, and the market noticed, with Intel's stock ticking up following the post. To recap, Intel and NVIDIA announced their strategic partnership roughly eight months ago in a deal both companies described as historic. The two companies planned to collaborate across data centers and consumer PCs, with Intel building custom x86 CPUs that NVIDIA would integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms, as well as x86 SoCs featuring integrated NVIDIA RTX GPU chiplets targeting a range of consumer devices. NVIDIA also backed the deal with a $5 billion equity investment in Intel, which has since received regulatory clearance. Public updates from either side have been relatively sparse since the initial announcement, which is part of why Tan's post generated so much attention. While the actual development work appears to be taking place out of the public eye, the CEOs of both companies have now confirmed that the collaboration is still active. On the product roadmap, a few details have emerged through leaks and investor briefings. According to Intel VP John Pitzer, Intel is developing a custom Xeon processor for NVIDIA that will take advantage of NVIDIA's NVLink Fusion interconnect, allowing Intel's x86 CPUs to integrate directly into NVIDIA's AI server architectures. This is a meaningful upgrade from the current PCIe-based connection used in systems like the DGX B300, where tighter NVLink integration should offer considerably better bandwidth for AI workloads. For the consumer side, leaks have pointed to a chip codenamed "Serpent Lake" as the first joint client product, reportedly tied to Intel's future Titan Lake architecture with an integrated NVIDIA RTX GPU tile. However, specific details like core counts and exact timing are based on leaks rather than confirmed roadmaps and should be treated as speculative. Analysts tracking the deal have suggested the first integrated x86 RTX consumer chips could arrive in time for the 2026 holiday season, with Intel-manufactured NVIDIA components on the 18A node potentially appearing by early 2027. The collaboration also has significant implications for Intel's foundry ambitions, particularly around the upcoming 14A process node. If joint products perform well on 18A and later 14A, it would be a strong vote of confidence in Intel's manufacturing recovery. Whether the timelines hold up remains to be seen, but for now, the partnership is very much alive and seemingly on track.