Computex '23 | Intel could produce some of Nvidia's next gen GPUs

Nvidia had an excellent first quarter for this financial year with substantial profits thanks to the booming demand for generative AI hardware. Apparently, the demand for server-grade GPUs is so high right now that TSMC cannot really keep up with the production allocations, so Team Green is looking to diversify its chip manufacturing methods. Samsung could easily fill in for part of the production, since Nvidia collaborated with the South Korean giant for its Ampere-based GPUs a few years ago, but even this might not be enough. The only other company with the manufacturing capacity that could satisfy Nvidia’s needs is Intel.

In a recent Q&A session at Computex, Team Green’s CEO Jensen Huang hinted that a Team Blue collaboration may be in the books. Huang expressed his content with the test results from a GPU manufactured on Intel’s next gen processing node.

You know that we also manufacture with Samsung, and we're open to manufacturing with Intel. Pat [Gelsinger] has said in the past that we're evaluating the process, and we recently received the test chip results of their next-generation process, and the results look good.

The statement is somewhat ambiguous, as it does not specify if the test chip features Nvidia’s design. Moreover, there are no details regarding the process node. Intel announced back in January this year that it managed to book a leading customer with cloud, edge and data center solutions for the Intel 3 nodes, so this could very well be the next gen process suggested by Huang. Intel also has the Angstrom-era nodes prepared for 2025 and these surely sound more next-gen. Nevertheless, we are probably looking at products releasing next year at the latest, given the overwhelming demand, which would eliminate the Angstrom nodes.

It is unlikely that Nvidia would right away task Intel with the production of its highly-coveted server-grade GPUs like the A100 and H100 or the high-end gaming GPUs. We could, however, see lower-mid-range Nvidia gaming GPUs and even processors like Grace Hopper produced by Intel. In any case, this diversification could help Nvidia improve its supply chains and become less dependent on TSMC, especially now with the escalating tensions between US, China and Taiwan.

Buy the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 VERTO EPIC-X RGB GPU on Amazon