Asked if Intel can succeed in developing foundries and chips, AMD exec says, 'Of course not'

Intel has been in the semiconductor chip manufacturing game for a while. Recently, it's been looking to expand its foundries and production to the point where it could make cutting-edge chips for other companies, a territory we normally associate with TSMC and Samsung.

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A current Intel foundry, image credit: Intel.

Currently, Intel is building and ramping up manufacturing in North America, Mexico, and Germany - and these foundries will be doing a lot more than simply creating chips for the latest generation of Core processors. Earlier this year, Intel and Arm announced a partnership to build mobile SoCs on Intel's 18A process node, and we've even heard from the likes of NVIDIA stating that it's open to working with Intel to produce its hardware.

All of this makes the recent statement from Darren Grasby, the executive vice president for strategic partnerships and president of AMD EMEA, a little shocking. His words were harsh when asked if Intel would succeed in its ambitious plans to build global foundries and develop and create chips for multiple companies. To say the least!

He was asked about Intel at the recent Canalys EMEA Forum 2023 in Barcelona and delivered the brutal response, "Of course not." According to the new outlet The Register, AMD's Darren Grasby was emphatic in his response, so it's hard to take the statement any other way than he believes Intel will fail or has no chance of creating competitive chips.

Of course, Intel and AMD are rivals, and in the PC gaming space, we see this with Ryzen CPUs going up against Intel Core CPUs. Recently, the consensus is that Intel has been playing catch-up, especially regarding things like a disaggregated or multi-die design - something Intel is only just starting to implement.

AMD's Darren Grasby has more to say, adding, "Intel has gone down these paths, and if you think about the journey of AMD, we had our fabs many years ago, and we chose to go fabless, and it was the turning point of the company that allowed us to invest those R&D dollars into the roadmap, and they're the roadmaps that are bringing that product and leading-edge technology to market today."

Granted, it is a risky move for Intel - to try and stay at the forefront of chip design and production. Companies like NVIDIA and AMD are fabless because it allows them to focus purely on applying process technology in for-use hardware. However, Intel has been in the game for so long that it would be nice to see it compete with TSMC and Samsung at the fab level.