The rivalry of the century is officially over.
Today, a Form 8-K filing confirmed that Intel (INTC) completed the sale of 214,776,632 shares to Nvidia (NVDA) for an aggregate cash price of $5.0 billion. This transaction, initially announced in September and cleared by the FTC earlier this month, makes Nvidia one of Intel’s largest institutional shareholders with an approximate 5% stake.
The Lifeline and the Leverage
Intel has spent 2025 in a state of managed collapse. Between capital-intensive foundry expansions and declining market share, the firm was hemorrhaging cash. The $5 billion infusion from Nvidia follows an **$8.9 billion** equity injection from the US government earlier this year.
But this is not a charity play.
Nvidia is buying leverage.
By securing a seat at Intel’s table, Nvidia gains guaranteed access to domestic foundry capacity and a historic co-design agreement for the x86 architecture. Nvidia is no longer just a chip designer; they are now a strategic partner in the production of the very CPUs they used to compete against.
Technical Fusion: The x86 RTX SOC
The real “alpha” of this deal is the Intel x86 RTX SOC. These “super-chips” will integrate Intel’s high-performance x86 CPU cores directly with Nvidia’s flagship RTX graphics chiplets using NVLink interconnect technology.
This bypasses the traditional PCIe bottleneck. It allows for CPU-to-GPU bandwidth that was previously impossible in a unified architecture. This is a direct strike at the high-end laptop and data center markets. Intel gets a product people actually want to buy. Nvidia gets to consolidate its AI and graphics stack into the heart of the PC ecosystem.
The Market Divergence
The market’s reaction today was one of… calculated digestion.
Nvidia shares slipped 1.3% in premarket trading as the market weighed the $5 billion cash outlay. Intel shares remained largely flat, having already priced in much of the turnaround story with an 80% year-to-date return.
For the Fink investor, Intel at $23.28 per share (Nvidia’s entry price) was a steal.
And we had been bullish on them for a long time.
https://x.com/db_fink/status/1959166155421004181?s=20
Today, it trades near $36.20. While some fair value metrics suggest it is currently ‘overvalued,’ the strategic floor is now reinforced by both Washington and the world’s most valuable AI company.
What happens net is anyone’s guess, but it looks like we’re doubling down on US infrastructure here, where previously competitors are now becoming pals.
I love it.