For those who have been worried about Nvidia’s eventual departure from the graphics card market, the partnership between Microsoft and Intel could keep the manufacturer of the most popular cards still in the game – which is great news for gamers.
Microsoft and Intel announced a landmark deal during the Intel Foundry event that would see the latter manufacture custom chips for the former. The deal is worth $15 billion, according to Intel, and will use Intel’s 18A process which appears to align with CEO Pat Gelsinger's go-forward strategy.
Though the type of chips hasn’t been revealed just yet, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft is planning in-house designs for processors and AI accelerators. This is important because if Intel is making these kinds of chips for Microsoft, then this could shake up the AI market, as well as the processor and even the graphics card market.
This would be especially damning for Nvidia, which seems less interested in graphics card development than it does its lucrative AI technology, which has propelled Nvidia to the trillion-dollar value mark and made it the third most valuable US company. However, a team-up between its competitors could challenge that, which could prompt Nvidia's return to the market that made its name.
Nvidia’s possible GPU return can only help gamers
Nvidia currently controls about 80% of the high-end AI chip market, which is most likely why tech giants like Microsoft, OpenAI, Alphabet, and Intel are scrambling to secure chips in the generative AI sector. According to a recent report, Nvidia may also enter the custom chip market, which is perfect timing for the planned partnership between Microsoft and Intel.
Considering that Nvidia only has refreshed its RTX 4000-series graphics cards with the 4000 Super series and that the 5000-series is still relegated to the rumor mill for now, these announcements and reports could serve as the motivating force for Nvidia to fully return to making cards again.
Nvidia could have its graphics cake and eat AI, too, if it decides to integrate some AI into the upcoming 5000-series. Of course, we don’t have the full story as of yet, but it’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds.
And more competition between tech giants can only benefit the average consumer, especially gamers who could get even better graphics cards from Nvidia in the long run.
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