Intel Foundry rumored with possible Intel 18A process node orders with Intel, Google and NVIDIA

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Intel is reportedly deep in discussions with NVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft to use its Intel 18A process node (classified as 2nm) for their upcoming chips, which would move some large orders away from TSMC.

In a post shared on X by insider @Jukanlosreve and reported by Korean media outlet Chosun, we're hearing that Intel Foundry's fresh new Intel 18A process node will enter stable mass production in the second half of the year, with Intel officially announcing in early April that 18A had entered risk production.

Intel Foundry being in discussions with the likes of NVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft could be a masterstroke move against TSMC in a world now controlled through tariffs under the Trump administration. Intel is a US-based company, and TSMC is a Taiwan-based company... if Intel is using its Intel Foundry semiconductor manufacturing arm on US soil, making and providing chips to US companies... then there are no tariffs.

TSMC making its most advanced chips in Taiwan for US (and global) customers, would experience tariffs entering the US, but there's also massive investments from TSMC into the US with new semiconductor fabs in Arizona, but they'll be a generation behind of what is made back home in Taiwan. Intel can use this to its advantage, making chips on US soil and not being tariffed, but making some of the highest-end chips available, all Made in America.

• Read more: Intel announces its cutting-edge 18A process node has entered 'risk production'
• Read more: Analyst: Intel will make the custom NVIDIA chip on Intel 18A node for Nintendo Switch 3

We've also got rumors that the next-gen Nintendo Switch 3 -- to be clear, NOT the upcoming Switch 2, but rather the next-gen Switch 3 -- on Intel 18A. That would be a massive win for Intel down the track, as it has been Samsung that has fabbed the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 chips that were designed by NVIDIA (the new Tegra 239 is inside of the Switch 2, fabbed on the Samsung 8N process node).

Intel played an order for ALL of ASML's bleeding-edge High-NA EUV lithography machines built in 2024, with each one of them costing an estimated $370 million... Intel is spending up billions of dollars to ensure it has the best semiconductor manufacturing equipment that money can buy.

Naga Chandrasekaran, Intel's global chief operating officer (COO), said during the recent Intel Foundry Direct Connect 2025 event held in the US: "18A is the most advanced technology node developed in the U.S. and the first gateway to a broad range of technologies that will scale to a high-volume manufacturing system. We are making meaningful progress today and are confident that we will be able to begin volume production and serve our customers through this node in the second half of this year. Intel 18A-P, a derivative node with enhanced performance than 18A, has already had its initial wafers (semiconductor raw plates) introduced to the fab (production facility".