Intel lands major Google order for 3 million AI chips as Nvidia tests advanced manufacturing

Google and Nvidia eye Intel as a TSMC backup for AI chips

Google has reportedly placed an order for more than 3 million of its TPUs in 2028, and Nvidia is trialling Intel's 18A process, a rare vote of confidence in America's struggling foundry. For years, the AI boom has run through a handful of factory floors in Taiwan. That dependence is starting to look risky enough that even Nvidia and Google are shopping for a backup, and the unlikely name on the list is Intel. Google has placed an order with Intel to manufacture more than three million of its in-house tensor processing units in 2028, while Nvidia is evaluating Intel's advanced packaging and its most cutting-edge 18A process for future chips, The Information reported on Monday, citing four people with direct knowledge of the talks. Intel's shares jumped about 12 per cent on the news. The driver is scarcity. TSMC, the Taiwanese giant that manufactures virtually every leading-edge AI chip, is straining to keep up with demand, with the squeeze worst in the advanced-packaging lines that stitch chips and memory together. For the companies designing the world's most sought-after silicon, relying on a single supplier in a single country has become a strategic liability. The two approaches differ in seriousness. Google's is a firm order: more than three million TPUs in 2028, after months of testing Intel's packaging, part of a build-out Morgan Stanley estimates at over six million TPUs across 2027 and 2028. Nvidia has not committed. It is running early trials, including multiproject wafer runs on 18A, and testing whether Intel can build a processor that fuses four graphics chips into one, a design tied to its Feynman GPU architecture due in 2028. For Intel, even cautious interest is a milestone. The one-time leader of American chipmaking has spent years trying to turn its contract-manufacturing arm into a credible rival to TSMC, with limited success and heavy losses. It has been courting Apple as a foundry customer, and both the US government and Nvidia have taken equity stakes in the company. Actual orders, rather than goodwill, are what the turnaround has lacked. The near-term opening is in packaging rather than the most advanced chipmaking, where Intel still trails. SK Hynix is reportedly testing whether its high-bandwidth memory works reliably with Intel's packaging too. Whether 18A can match TSMC on yield, the share of chips that come out usable, remains the open question that has tripped Intel up before. It also underscores how far Google has gone to control its own silicon. Its tensor processing units now ship in the millions, and it has been spreading orders across a roster of partners to reduce its reliance on both Nvidia and TSMC. Adding Intel is one more hedge. None of this dethrones TSMC, whose lead in leading-edge manufacturing remains vast. But it is a sign that the AI industry's most powerful buyers no longer want all their eggs in one Taiwanese basket, and that Intel, written off by many, may yet have a role to play in supplying them. For a company that has needed a customer to believe in its comeback, Google just became one.

Intel Foundry comeback! Is a bigger Intel stock surge ahead? INTC shares surge 9.16% today as Google's 3 million TPU order and Nvidia testing fuel Intel's AI revival

Intel stock is back in focus. INTC shares surged 9.16% after reports that Google ordered more than 3 million TPU AI chips from Intel for 2028. Nvidia is also testing Intel's advanced 18A process. As TSMC faces capacity pressure, Intel Foundry is emerging as a serious AI manufacturing contender, reshaping investor expectations. Intel stock surged over 10% on Monday in a session where most of the market was bleeding out. The S&P 500 fell 2.6%, the Nasdaq dropped 4.2%, and semiconductor peers struggled to hold ground. Yet Intel opened at $111 and held firm near $109, defying gravity. The reason was a single, credible report from The Information: Google had placed a real order with Intel to manufacture more than 3 million TPU chips, and Nvidia was actively testing Intel's most advanced chip process. For a company that spent years fighting for credibility in the foundry space, this was more than a headline. It was a signal that Intel's long and painful turnaround may finally be finding solid ground. Intel stock has lived in a state of perpetual comeback narrative for years. But narratives don't move stocks by 10% on a down day. Hard orders do. And the Google TPU deal -- confirmed by four people with direct knowledge, cited in the report -- gave Intel's foundry story exactly the commercial validation it had been missing. Investors who had watched Intel lose ground to TSMC and Samsung got something tangible to price in. Why Google's TPU order to Intel changes everything for Intel stock Google's Tensor Processing Units are not generic chips. They are the proprietary AI processors that power Google's model training and inference, and Google now sells TPU computing access to major customers including Apple and Meta. When Google decides to manufacture over 3 million of these chips through Intel by 2028, it is not dabbling. It is placing a significant production bet after months of testing Intel's advanced packaging technology. That testing period matters -- it means Intel passed real technical scrutiny before this deal was struck. Morgan Stanley's read on this deal is especially telling. The bank estimates Google will produce more than 6 million TPUs across 2027 and 2028 combined, which means the Intel Foundry relationship could scale substantially beyond the initial order. With Morgan Stanley also projecting roughly 30% year-over-year revenue growth in Intel's data center segment for 2026, the foundry win and the CPU tailwind are reinforcing each other at exactly the right moment for Intel stock. Is Nvidia testing Intel's 18A process a bigger long-term catalyst? The Nvidia angle is less certain but potentially larger in scale. According to two sources cited in the report, Nvidia is running early trials using Intel's 18A process -- the company's most advanced 1.8-nanometer manufacturing node -- through multiproject wafer runs. The specific goal is to evaluate whether Intel can produce a processor that integrates four GPU dies into a single package, tied to Nvidia's Feynman series GPU architecture planned for 2028. No order has been placed. But the fact that Nvidia -- the world's most valuable chipmaker -- is seriously testing Intel's manufacturing process rather than defaulting entirely to TSMC is a credibility inflection point for Intel's foundry ambitions. "In the last four weeks, I have had all CEOs calling me, saying 'I need more CPU.'" -- Lip-Bu Tan, Intel CEO Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan had already signaled that AI inference workloads were driving a sharp surge in demand for Intel's data center CPUs. That demand, layered on top of the foundry developments, is building a coherent growth thesis for Intel stock that didn't exist cleanly even six months ago. TSMC capacity crunch is quietly handing Intel a historic opportunity Behind all of this is a structural shift that is easy to underestimate. TSMC's manufacturing capacity is strained. The AI chip boom has overwhelmed its leading-edge wafer lines and advanced packaging production. Companies like Google and Nvidia are not turning to Intel because Intel is suddenly perfect. They are turning to Intel because TSMC cannot do everything, and the risk of single-source dependency in AI hardware is becoming too large to ignore. Intel is benefiting from being the most credible alternative at a moment when the industry desperately needs one. For Intel stock, the significance of Monday's move isn't just the 10% gain. It's what that gain represents in a deeply red tape -- a company-specific catalyst powerful enough to defy a broad market selloff. That kind of counter-trend strength reflects genuine re-rating, not just sentiment. Intel's foundry strategy has struggled for years to earn market confidence. Monday, in a session where almost nothing else worked, it earned some. What investors in Intel stock should watch next The immediate catalyst is priced in. What matters now is whether the Google TPU relationship scales toward Morgan Stanley's 6 million unit estimate, whether Nvidia moves from testing to an actual 18A order, and whether Intel's 18A process yields at commercial scale -- something it has not yet demonstrated publicly. Intel stock has a 52-week range of $18.96 to $132.75. At $108, it is far from those highs but moving with real momentum for the first time in a long while. The foundry narrative just got a facts-based foundation. Whether Intel can execute on it remains the central question.

US market today: Alphabet taps Intel to make three million in-house chips: Report

Nvidia has not placed an order with Intel yet, but has been evaluating whether the company's technology can be used to make a processor that combines four graphics ⁠chips into a single unit, the report said. Alphabet's Google has placed an order with Intel to manufacture more than three million tensor processing units in 2028, The Information reported on Monday, citing people with ⁠direct ⁠knowledge of the discussions. Nvidia has not placed an order with Intel yet, but has been evaluating whether the company's technology can be used to make a processor that combines four graphics ⁠chips into a single unit, the report said. US MarketsPowered By As on 06 Jun 2026, 01:30 AM IST S&P 500 Top Gainers Cooper Companies67.34(8.58%) Kimberly-Clark99.04(6.19%) Clorox94.14(5.03%) Kenvue17.71(4.92%) Gainers" S&P 500 Top Losers Micron Technology864.01(-13.25%) Teradyne357.93(-12.03%) First Solar279.01(-11.41%) Intel99.17(-11.28%) Losers" Intel's shares surged more than 13% ⁠in premarket trading. Alphabet, Intel and Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Reuters could not independently verify the report. The news is the latest sign that a turnaround at Intel is gathering steam after years of management blunders allowed TSMC to take the lead in chip manufacturing. Tesla ⁠CEO Elon Musk said in April that the EV maker plans to use Intel's next-generation 14A manufacturing process to make chips at its Terafab project, an advanced AI chip complex Musk has envisioned in Austin.

Intel gains ground on Google and Nvidia in AI chip manufacturing

Intel could receive a major boost from Google for its foundry business. According to The Information, the group has reportedly secured an order for over three million Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) scheduled for production in 2028. The report also indicates that Nvidia is exploring the use of Intel's manufacturing technologies for a future processor integrating four graphics chips, although no formal agreement has been reached yet. This news provided strong tailwinds for Intel shares, which surged by over 12% on Monday. If confirmed, the Google order would represent a significant milestone in the turnaround strategy led by CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Intel is seeking to revitalize its semiconductor manufacturing business after losing ground to TSMC. Surging demand linked to artificial intelligence and capacity constraints at the Taiwanese foundry are prompting several industry players to diversify their suppliers, offering Intel an opportunity to regain prominence in the global production chain. The group has already secured several financial and industrial endorsements in recent months, notably from the Trump administration, Nvidia, and SoftBank. Intel has also signed an agreement with Tesla for its future 14A manufacturing process and has reportedly reached a preliminary deal with Apple to produce certain chips. For many analysts, partnering with Intel now serves not only to diversify supply chains but also to bolster semiconductor production on US soil, an objective encouraged by American authorities.