For those who have been worried about Nvidia's eventual exit from the graphics card market, the partnership between Microsoft and Intel could keep the maker 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 manufacturing 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 future strategy.
Although the type of chips has not yet been revealed, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft is planning internal designs for AI processors and accelerators. This is important because if Intel makes these types of chips for Microsoft, this could shake up the AI market, as well as the processor market and even the graphics card market.
This would be especially damaging for Nvidia, which seems less interested in developing graphics cards than in its lucrative artificial intelligence technology, which has propelled Nvidia to the top. trillion dollar brand and turned it into third most valuable American company. However, a partnership between its competitors could challenge that, potentially fueling Nvidia's return to the market that gave it its name.
Nvidia's possible GPU return can only help gamers
Nvidia currently controls around 80% of the high-end AI chip market, which is likely why tech giants like Microsoft, OpenAI, Alphabet, and Intel are struggling to secure chips in the generative AI sector. According a recent reportNvidia may also enter the custom chip market, which is perfect timing for the planned partnership between Microsoft and Intel.
Considering that Nvidia has only updated its RTX 4000 series graphics cards with the 4000 Super series and that the 5000 series For now still relegated to rumors, these announcements and reports could serve as a motivating force for Nvidia to fully return to making cards again.
Nvidia could have its graphics pie 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 yet, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
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.
