'There might be a party. I wasn't invited,' says Jensen Huang of the rumoured TSMC proposal to join forces and run Intel's chip fabs

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivering pancakes and sausages to pre-GTC show hosts and guests, wearing an apron — (Image credit: Nvidia)

Given the year Intel's had, it wasn't the biggest surprise when there started to be talk of the company selling off its manufacturing division or even the whole shebang. It was, however, a little surprising when there were reports that TSMC was proposing joining with Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom to run Intel's chip fabs.

It must have certainly been surprising to Jensen Huang, too, as Reuters now reports the Nvidia CEO clearly states he's not been asked to pick up a piece of Intel.

Answering a question about it at GTC 2025, Huang reportedly says: "Nobody's invited us to a consortium… Nobody invited me. Maybe other people are involved, but I don't know. There might be a party. I wasn't invited."

The original rumour was that TSMC had pitched the other three companies about "taking stakes in a joint venture" to run Intel's factories, which had come from "four sources familiar with the matter." It now seems that these sources may have been incorrect, at least as far as Nvidia is concerned. Though perhaps there was a party where Huang wasn't invited—who knows?

Row after row of machines are used to assemble the millions of chips Intel ships every year — (Image credit: Intel)

It's arguably the fabrication side of the business that's been struggling the most. After all, Intel had to ask TSMC to make a large portion of its very own Arrow Lake chips after seemingly killing off 20A. And let's not forget the chip stability issues and $18.8 billion worth of losses in 2024.

In addition to Tan's leadership, hopes now rest—as ex-Intel CEO Gelsinger admitted they did over a year ago—with the 18A process, which looks like it might now actually be churning out chips. And if the stock market's anything to go by, there seems to be plenty of confidence in Tan taking over the reins.

So a fabrication spin-off might not be on the cards after all, though only time will tell. Opinion is divided on whether that would be a good or bad thing—Jim Keller, for instance, called a potential Intel chip and fab spin-off a "fire sale."

All eyes will be on Tan and Intel over the coming months (or maybe years) to see just whether it will occur. And, if so, whether Nvidia will be invited to the party.

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Jacob got his hands on a gaming PC for the first time when he was about 12 years old. He swiftly realised the local PC repair store had ripped him off with his build and vowed never to let another soul build his rig again. With this vow, Jacob the hardware junkie was born. Since then, Jacob's led a double-life as part-hardware geek, part-philosophy nerd, first working as a Hardware Writer for PCGamesN in 2020, then working towards a PhD in Philosophy for a few years while freelancing on the side for sites such as TechRadar, Pocket-lint, and yours truly, PC Gamer. Eventually, he gave up the ruthless mercenary life to join the world's #1 PC Gaming site full-time. It's definitely not an ego thing, he assures us.

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