Intel's New Funding Came From Already-Awarded Grants. So What Happens Next? (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0178840402
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/08/23/1851227/intels-new-funding-came-from-already-awarded-grants-so-what-happens-next
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/23/the-trump-administrations-big-intel-investment-comes-from-already-awarded-grants/
But TechCrunch points out that the U.S. government " [3]does not appear to be committing new funds . Instead, it's simply making good on what Intel described as 'grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel.'"
> Specifically, the $8.9 billion is supposed to come from $5.7 billion [4]awarded-but-not-paid to Intel under the Biden administration's CHIPS Act, as well as $3.2 billion also [5]awarded by the Biden administration through the Secure Enclave program. In a post on his social network Truth Social, Trump wrote, "The United States paid nothing for these shares..." Trump has been critical of the CHIPS Act, [6]calling it a "horrible, horrible thing " and calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to "get rid" of it...
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> [7]According to The New York Times , some bankers and lawyers believe the CHIPS Act may not allow the government to convert its grants to equity, opening this deal to potential legal challenges.
Reuters writes that the money " [8]will not be enough for its contract-chipmaking business to flourish, analysts said. Intel still needs external customers for its cutting-edge 14A manufacturing process to go to production, says Summit Insights analyst Kinngai Chan, "to make its foundry arm economically viable."
> "We don't think any government investment will change the fate of its foundry arm if they cannot secure enough customers..."
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> Reuters has reported that Intel's current 18A process — less advanced than 14A — is facing [9]problems with yield , the measure of how many chips printed are good enough to make available to customers. Large chip factories including TSMC swallow the cost of poor yields during the first iterations of the process when working with customers like Apple. For Intel, which [10]reported net losses for six straight quarters, that's hard to do and still turn a profit. "If the yield is bad then new customers won't use Intel Foundry, so it really won't fix the technical aspect of the company," said Ryuta Makino, analyst at Gabelli Funds, which holds Intel stock.
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> Makino, who believes that Intel can ultimately produce chips at optimal yields, views the deal as a net negative for Intel compared with just receiving the funding under the CHIPS Act as originally promised under the Biden Administration. "This isn't free money," he said. The federal government will not take a seat on Intel's board and has agreed to vote with the company's board on matters that need shareholder approval, Intel said. But this voting agreement comes with "limited exceptions" and the government is getting Intel's shares at a 17.5% discount to their closing price on Friday. The stake will make the U.S. government Intel's biggest shareholder, though neither Trump nor Intel disclosed when the transaction would happen...
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> Some analysts say Intel could benefit from the government's support, including in building out factories. Intel has said it is investing more than $100 billion to expand its U.S. factories and expects to begin high-volume chip production later this year at its Arizona plant. "To have access to capital and a new partial owner that wants to see you succeed are both important," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel.
[1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/22/1849210/intel-has-agreed-to-a-deal-for-us-to-take-10-equity-stake-trump-says
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/22/intel-trump-deal-china-chips/
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/23/the-trump-administrations-big-intel-investment-comes-from-already-awarded-grants/
[4] https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/26/intel-and-biden-administration-finalize-7-86b-deal-to-fund-domestic-chip-manufacturing/
[5] https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1708/intel-awarded-up-to-3b-by-the-biden-harris-administration
[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/technology/trump-chips-act.html
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/technology/trump-intel-stake.html
[8] https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/did-trump-save-intel-not-really-2025-08-23/
[9] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/intel-struggles-with-key-manufacturing-process-next-pc-chip-sources-say-2025-08-05/
[10] https://www.reuters.com/business/intel-is-cutting-more-jobs-ceo-tan-tries-fix-manufacturing-missteps-2025-07-24/
Intel will sue the Federal Govt'... (Score:2)
... when a more moderate administration takes office, maybe in ~3 years, maybe in ~7 years, or maybe when the statute of limitations for this type of crime is about to kick in, and they will get their money back.
The important thing right now for intel is to live as a going concern long enough to fight another day.
TSMC is investing (Score:2)
Hundreds of billions of dollars into their tech. A few billion bucks is a drop-in-the-bucket in this industry. This is chump change to Intel. The chips act barely moved the needle.
Not a Great Idea (Score:2)
What happens when the government takes over a commercial enterprise? First. all of its competitors have to compete against the government. Next, the government starts participating in strategic decisions within the company. This is the way industrial concerns are run in China. Do we really want to emulate that? We can only hope that Intel makes a quick recovery and the government divests itself of interest soon, as Obama did when he bailed out Chrysler/Stellantis.
Re: (Score:2)
That's an interesting comparison I had missed. Good call.
Presumably the military needs decent chips fabbed on US soil. Doesn't have to compete with AMD or Samsung in the PC CPU market.
GF bought IBM fabs, TI isn't relevant, TSMC is just coming online but is still controlled by Taiwan. Is Motorola/Freescale around anymore?
With an engineer in charge maybe Intel stands a chance of a rebound. Competition is good so let's hope so.
I haven't bought an Intel desktop or server chip since 2018 but plenty of their low
Re: Not a Great Idea (Score:2)
Do we really want to emulate that?
Which part? The GDP growth part or the totalitarian part? Ask plenty of people, and they'll say we're already getting the totalitarian part; it'd be a shame not to get some material benefit while we're at it, no?
14A? (Score:2)
Just so we're all clear... 14A means 14Angstroms? That translates to a millionth of a micron, am I reading that right?
My big tower is a Threadripper 3960x... that's 7nm.
What the bloody hell are they making at that size? I could see some interconnects at that size... cache to core... but the whole kit-and-kaboodle, no friggin' way.
I think the bond wires are bigger than that.
Re: (Score:2)
One Angstrom is 1/10 of a nanometer or 1/10,000th of a micron, so 14 Angstroms is 1.4 nm. [1]Intel's road map [tomshardware.com] goes 7 (nm), 4, 3, 18A, 14A. 20A was tested but was canceled.
[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-foundry-roadmap-update-new-18a-pt-variant-that-enables-3d-die-stacking-14a-process-node-enablement
Re: (Score:2)
Not really true. Don't be fooled by marketing.
Intel 7 is a rebrand of 10 Enhanced SuperFin (10ESF). That is a node that is a refinement of their tragically-failed 10nm node. 10nm nodes included 10nm, 10nm+, 10SF, and 10ESF. Intel renamed 10ESF to Intel 7 without changing anything in hopes that no one would notice.
They also renamed their 7nm node to Intel 4. Intel 3 is a refinement of 4.
Re: (Score:2)
It's just a name. It doesn't necessarily mean that 14a has any transistor dimensions measuring exactly 14 angstroms. Most node names have been marketing for awhile.
Also your 3960X is on N7 which was definitely not a 7nm node, despite the name.
You'll have to do some digging to find actual transistor density figures for N7 and more-recent nodes to get an idea of how dense they're getting relative to N7.
Re: (Score:2)
I know... there's no possible way to make anything on the Angstrom level. If there was a whole process that could fab a chip at that scale... I would love a peek under the hood!
I know my beast isn't 7nm (should it be nM... my understanding is nM would be nanometer... nm would be like nanomillimeter) per core or die (if the entire 24-core die was 7nm... I sneeze and the entire package flies into a corner... although, I'd wonder what that 7nm is referring to... a single transistor or an interconnect or who k
Again if this administration wasn't so corrupt (Score:3)
This would be great news. I much prefer the government buying stock in a company instead of just handing my taxpayer dollars to it with no strings attached.
And yeah Intel gets a bail out. If they go under we only have one viable x86 CPU manufacturer and like it or not virtually every single work computer on the planet runs off x86. There are a handful of people running Macs mostly for web programming or a handful of specialized animation tools.
It's the same reason we got stuck bailing the auto companies out. We need their capacity so we can't let them go under.
These companies know that and they are abusing it. That's why buying a stake would be a good thing. Normally.
We passed normality around the time a guy with a Nazi iron Cross got appointed to head the military because he was the only one that will order troops to fire on American citizens...
What? (Score:2)
So, are the CHIPS Act grants really grants or stock purchases?
"According to The New York Times, some bankers and lawyers believe the CHIPS Act may not allow the government to convert its grants to equity, opening this deal to potential legal challenges."
So, if the US can convert its grants to equity, does this apply to TSMC as well as Intel?
Or it this just more extra-legal daydreaming on Trump's part, daydreaming that has practical value for Trump because the Republicans have seized control of the judiciar
What do you mean, "what happens next"? (Score:3)
What happens when a "small government party" takes over a company and begins to micromanage?
On top of everything else, government corruption is applied directly to the company's forehead, it fails, and the government officers that meddled become a lot richer.
Collective ownership of the means of production, Socialism, etc.
The stuff the trump party is and has always been against, except when in power.
Re: (Score:1)
Interesting, I get it, but I don't think that's happening; TSMC is [1]investing in US fab plants [reuters.com], so the US does have a stake in their not being appropriated by China.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/tsmc-ceo-meet-with-trump-tout-investment-plans-2025-03-03
Re: (Score:2)
They're all "US companies"... the main corporate office is in the US.
Where is their stuff manufactured? Not on US soil... workers are too expensive! I'd bet they do the design and layout stuff here, e-mail it to someone overseas, they assemble it in India or Malaysia (for 1/2c on the dollar), and ship it here to be sold for 100x more.
Very little manufacturing is done on US soil these days... I think Electrolux still makes stuff in Greensboro, maybe. And, maybe a few cars are assembled here, but all those
Re: (Score:2)
Taiwan is strategically useful to the USA today because of TSMC's manufacturing in the country. If America were to have domestic chip making comparable, then Taiwan would lose its strategic importance and potentially lose military support.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's be honest, the CHIPS Act was already a mistake since it did too much to help Intel without doing enough for the also-ran foundries that Intel put into the dirt.
Re: (Score:2)
More to the point, as President Trump controls financial, economic, export, and import levers -- especially as Congress has currently abdicated their authority and responsibility. What do you think he'll do to control Intel's share price, or just to keep it from falling below what was paid? Let me re-phrase that, what won't he do? You know, to preserve the "winning". This s bad idea and a slippery slope ... I thought Republicans were staunchly against picking winners and losers.
Re:What do you mean, "what happens next"? (Score:4, Informative)
> Biden already allocated the money to Intel. This has nothing to do with your TDS
That was for grants, not shares / a stake in the company - there's actually a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
> More to the point, as President Trump controls financial, economic, export, and import levers
To see how scary this really is, for "President Trump" substitute "financially illiterate (near) octogenarian" and for "controls [...] levers" substitute "world's largest economy". There must be at least some Republicans left who realise that playing Jenga with your economy isn't a good thing.
Re:What do you mean, "what happens next"? (Score:4, Informative)
Republicans have never been a small goverment party and they've never been a fiscally conservative party either, at least not in the lifetime of most Americans. Just because they say they are doesn't mean anything.
Nobody expanded the power of the goverment like Bush and Trump. They also did a huge amount for the sake of expanding the size of our debt.
Re: (Score:2)
They also did a huge amount for the sake of expanding the size of our debt.
Let us not forget Reagan and Trump's contributions to the debt.
Re: (Score:2)
Only those two?
Haven't every single President (or, if you prefer... administration) pushed that debt further and further?
At this point, I don't even think draining every single US bank account would help (if you sucked the balances out). The 'national debt' has always been around and will always be around, regardless of who is in office, sorry to say. Would Harris have helped it?
Re: (Score:2)
> Haven't every single President
Only the last 3. Clinton had reduced the debt after Reagan ran it up. Prior to Reagan, a balanced budget was seen as the norm.
> Would Harris have helped it?
Maybe, if she started taxing the rich. The campaign was kind of mute or muddied on that. But even if she would have promised that, I would expect her not to follow through. Similarly to how Trump never followed through on his promise to tax the rich.
Re:What do you mean, "what happens next"? (Score:4, Interesting)
> What happens when a "small government party" takes over a company and begins to micromanage?
You get [1] Lemon socialism [wikipedia.org].
No one without a vested interest thinks this is a good idea.
> The stuff the trump party is and has always been against, except when in power.
That was the past. Trump has transformed the Republican Party from the party of the bourgeoisie to the party of the proletariat.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_socialism
Re: (Score:1)
> No one without a vested interest thinks this is a good idea.
Don't make me laugh, a whole bunch of morons without vested interest voted for this crap.
> That was the past. Trump has transformed the Republican Party from the party of the bourgeoisie to the party of the proletariat.
LOL. So much illusion and ignorance about the actual stance of the Republican party about the economy on slashdot...
Re: (Score:2)
> LOL. So much illusion and ignorance about the actual stance of the Republican party about the economy on slashdot...
What is the stance of the republican party on the economy?
Re: (Score:2)
A very wide one, as evidenced by many a bus toilet encounter.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought Larry Craig was more fond of airports.
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't transform anything. He wasn't an aberration, or surprise. He's exactly what the right wing media machine has been priming you for for decades.
There is perhaps no more succinct word than "Bourgeoisie" to describe him. I know you've seen the way he decorates his palace, the way he treats his servants, and more important than all that: the suffering he's imposing, now, on the "proletariat" at large, people who've got nothing to do with him.
The way you prostrate yourself before him and shit all over y
Re:What do you mean, "what happens next"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Before Republicans became the Trump Party, they had ideological principles. I didn't agree with a lot of them, and they certainly liked to bend the rules, but they did have principles. Trump, however, has never had principles. He's spent his whole life opportunistically lurching from one situation to another while squeezing whatever he can get for himself without a single concern about how it will affect anyone else. And his followers consistently support him despite the fact that there's rarely anything tangible in it for themselves. People are slowly waking up to the reality of the situation, but the question is whether or not it will be too late by the time most people figure it out.
Re:What do you mean, "what happens next"? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Before Republicans became the Trump Party, they had ideological principles.
Did they?
That's a new one.
When was that, during the dubbya administration, when they looked Putin in the eyes and saw his soul?
During the Reagan administration, when they negotiated with the Iranians to keep the hostages so that they get a win?
During the Nixon one, which, you know, ended with a resignation?
During the Ike one, which ended in that famous "OMG we've been bought wholesale" speech?
Perhaps earlier?
Re: (Score:2)
You actually make a reasonably convincing argument for the idea that the republican party does have principles; they just overlap pretty weakly with the ones they pretend at.
The most striking break with history is the bit where Nixon-level criminality used to be politically problematic.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they don't have principles, they are complete opportunists, which is the opposite of "having principles".
Besides, they are the worst kind of opportunists, the kind that always takes the fastest payout possible.
This is a major strategic weakness, because it makes them very predictable and easy to beat, as demonstrated by putin, who won over "America" basically by scratching the ego of her president. A very easy win.
But the most striking break with history is the weak Democratic "leadership", which wasn't
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah we all miss Mitt Romney so much.