Hannibal Hanschke/EPA
Trump announced the purchase of a 10% stake in the company, valued at about 7.6 billion euros. The long and painful fall of Intel.
The giant has just become a project supported by the United States government. This Friday, the administration of Donald Trump announced the purchase of a share of 10% in the company, valued at about $ 8.9 billion (about 7.6 billion euros).
The outcome marks one of the largest government interventions in a US company since the 2008 financial crisis and, at the same time, is the fall of one of the most powerful names in the technological industry. But how did this happen?
Founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce, the inventor of the microchip, Gordon Moore, author of the famous “Moore Law”, and Andy Grove, a Hungarian engineer known for his management rigor, Intel was responsible for boosting the Personal Computer Revolution — o PCacronym for which it became known.
Throughout 1970 and 1980, its microprocessors became the heart of the first PCs: Intel closed strategic partnership with IBM and later with Microsoft, which was born the so-called “era Wintel”.
Andy Grove’s motto – “only paranoids survive” – shaped a business culture that made Intel Absolute leader in chips manufacture. In the late 1990s, the company was One of the most valuable in the world.
It all started to change after Grove’s departure from the lead in 2005, remembers the. Intel has failed crucial strategic opportunities, such as entry into the smartphone market and artificial intelligence. In 2005, the then executive president Paul Otellini refused to manufacture chips for the first iPhoneConsidering Apple’s proposal insufficient – a mistake that he would admit to being precisely that, a mistake later.
Although it maintained the dominant position in the market of servers and data centers, Intel felt technological competitiveness on the skin. Promising projects canceled, Including the creation of a graphic chip that could have paved the way to the field of artificial intelligence, they left it behind Nvidia, which would conquer its space, which keeps to this day.
And the company’s leaders were changing. Brian Krzanich has invested thousands of millions to try to enter the mobile market without success. Chronic delays in production From new manufacturing processes allowed rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung to overtake Intel between 2015 and 2019.
Pat Gelsinger returned in 2021 to lead recovery, with an ambitious strategy: launch five new manufacturing processes in four years and Invest more than $ 100 billion in factories in the United States. It was also one of the lobbying faces that led to the approval of Chip Act, a 50 billion program designed to revitalize the US semiconductor industry.
But while Intel focused on production, Global demand fired on graphic processors (GPUS), fundamental to training artificial intelligence models such as chatgPT. NVIDIA, specialized in this segment, assumed technological and financial leadership, becoming in 2024 most valuable rated company in the world.
The entry of the US government
With falling revenues and high costs, Intel has become dependent on state support. Last November received $ 7.86 billion through chips Act. A few months later, Gelsinger was removed after a term considered and replaced by Lip-This Tanveteran executive of the sector, which outlined a restructuring plan with personnel cuts and a new strategy for artificial intelligence. Now Trump has demanded his departure, referring to his past investments in Chinese companies.
Trump proposed that Intel gave in 10% of capital to government in exchange for financing already received. The agreement was made official this Friday.
