Recently, Wedbush, a well-known investment institution on Wall Street, stated that U.S. consumer electronics giant Apple (AAPL) is expanding its domestic U.S. supply chain by establishing a partnership with chipmaker Intel (INTC), a move aimed at alleviating cost and supply shortage pressures related to memory chips. Analysts believe that this cooperation model based on U.S. domestic foundry is a win-win for both parties: Apple gains supply chain security guarantees and a backup for advanced chip production capacity, reducing its over-reliance on TSMC; while Intel secures Apple as a top-tier client, providing credibility and endorsement for its chip foundry business, and is expected to benefit from policy dividends related to the resurgence of the U.S. semiconductor industry.
For Intel, whose stock price has performed strongly so far this year, its long-term investment thesis is becoming increasingly solid. With the surge in CPU demand driven by the AI inference era, coupled with relevant policy support and potential orders from major clients such as Apple and Nvidia, Intel is re-establishing its market position. Market observers believe that the company is being re-priced from “an aging IDM lagging behind TSMC” to “a U.S. national-level advanced manufacturing and AI computing infrastructure backbone.” This transformation is driven by multiple factors, including policy support, top-tier client orders, growing demand for AI server CPUs, and the premium associated with U.S. domestic manufacturing.
Although Apple announced in 2020 that its Macs would transition to self-developed chips and completed its “breakup” with Intel’s x86 architecture CPUs in 2023, the core of the two companies’ renewed collaboration this time lies in chip foundry cooperation. According to reports, Apple is considering using Intel’s U.S.-based wafer fabs to produce some of its self-developed chip components. The broader context for this move is that Apple’s supply chain is highly concentrated around TSMC, whose advanced production lines are being heavily occupied by AI chip demand from companies like Nvidia and AMD. Wedbush analysts point out that this could help Apple diversify its manufacturing footprint during an AI-driven three-to-four-year device upgrade cycle, while also enhancing its supply chain bargaining power when rising memory chip prices put pressure on profit margins. It should be made clear that this should be understood as a strategic supplement rather than a wholesale replacement; Apple will still rely on TSMC’s most advanced processes in the short term, and Intel will need to prove its yield and delivery capabilities with its 18A and subsequent node technologies.
Intel is transitioning from its past identity as a PC-cycle stock to a composite AI infrastructure player that integrates an advanced manufacturing platform, a core supplier of AI server CPUs, and strategic client foundry operations. Apple’s potential cooperation would bring top-tier client endorsement to Intel’s foundry business; meanwhile, confirmation by AI giants like Nvidia of the CPU’s critical controller role in GPU clusters further underscores the importance of Intel’s Xeon processors. The company’s recent financial reports show that its Data Center and AI segment, as well as its foundry business, have both achieved significant year-over-year revenue growth. Intel itself has also emphasized that AI’s evolution from foundation models to inference and intelligent agents will substantially increase demand for CPUs, wafers, and advanced packaging. On this basis, Wall Street firm Melius Research has sharply raised its price target for Intel to $150, with the core logic being that Intel is being re-priced as a uniquely strategic and scarce asset encompassing “AI data center CPUs + U.S. domestic advanced foundry.”
