Chip industry giant Intel Corporation (INTC) is reportedly in talks for a potential acquisition of AI startup SambaNova Systems. While SambaNova was once valued at up to $5 billion, insiders indicate that the rumored acquisition price may only reach $1.6 billion. This move represents another critical strategic attempt by Intel in the field of artificial intelligence.
This is not Intel’s first major acquisition in the AI domain. Back in 2019, well before the generative AI boom, Intel acquired Israel-based Habana Labs, a company specializing in AI training processors, for approximately $2 billion. Its core product, the Gaudi AI chip, was once seen as a promising challenger to NVIDIA’s GPUs. However, despite the subsequent releases of Gaudi 2 and Gaudi 3 chips, Intel has yet to achieve a substantial breakthrough in the AI training market. This is due to both the entrenched market landscape and Intel’s own strategic challenges.
If the acquisition of SambaNova succeeds, the outlook for this deal could differ from the Habana case. First, the target market has shifted. Rather than focusing on the fiercely competitive AI training market, SambaNova primarily targets the AI inference sector. Its core is built around customized reconfigurable dataflow unit (RDU) chips, and based on this, it provides fully integrated rack-scale solutions combining hardware, networking, and software. Last year, the company announced solutions supporting “sovereign AI” inference clouds for Australia, Europe, and the UK, and was selected by French cloud service provider OVHcloud as one of the compute providers for its AI services.
Second, this acquisition aligns closely with Intel’s current strategic adjustments. After canceling the Falcon Shores project, Intel explicitly stated its shift toward a rack-scale AI strategy, aiming to deliver value to customers by developing fully integrated systems. Acquiring SambaNova would undoubtedly serve as a shortcut to quickly gain relevant technology, products, and market access. Additionally, the two companies already have close ties: SambaNova is a portfolio company of Intel’s investment arm, and its chairman is Intel’s current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan.
Although Intel’s acquisition history, particularly in the AI field, has not been flawless, focusing on the more open AI inference market and betting on system-level solutions make the acquisition of SambaNova appear more logically sound. This potential deal may represent a realistic path for Intel to seek differentiated competition and achieve substantive progress in the AI infrastructure market.
