Negócio de foundry da Intel continua perdendo bilhões sem perspectiva de recuperação

Bilhões evaporam enquanto a Intel luta para encontrar seu rumo no competitivo mercado de semicondutores.

Queda Livre Financeira

As perdas se acumulam trimestre após trimestre, com a divisão de foundry mostrando números vermelhos persistentes. Nenhum plano de recuperação convincente surgiu dos escritórios executivos - apenas mais promessas vazias e projeções revisadas para baixo.

Falta de Visão Estratégica

Enquanto a TSMC e a Samsung avançam agressivamente em processos de nanômetros menores, a Intel patina em tecnologias ultrapassadas. Clientes fogem para concorrentes que oferecem melhor desempenho e prazos de entrega confiáveis.

Os acionistas continuam segurando a bolsa - porque alguém tem que financiar esse desastre operacional que faria qualquer analista financeiro chorar margens de lucro.

Intel’s foundry business keeps losing billions with no turnaround in sight

Intel used to only make chips for itself. But in 2021, then-CEO Pat Gelsinger opened up the company’s manufacturing to outside clients. That’s when Intel Foundry Services was born. The idea was to spend hundreds of billions of dollars building new factories so Intel could produce chips for other companies. It was supposed to be a comeback play after Intel started losing market share. But the plan didn’t work.

The business failed to attract major customers. As a result, Intel Foundry Services lost $7 billion in 2023. And in 2024, the losses jumped to $13 billion. That’s nearly double in one year. These numbers spooked investors and crushed the company’s stock. Intel’s shares plunged 60% last year. By December, Pat was out. The board fired him.

Wall Street analysts are still worried. Angelo Zino from CFRA said, “This is a business that will continue to bleed cash at least through 2027.” Chris Danely from Citi downgraded Intel the day after Nvidia’s announcement. He said the rally was overhyped and that the foundry division has “minimal chance to succeed.”

Some experts want Intel to just sell the foundry unit and cut their losses. Others warn that doing that would push Intel’s own chip production costs even higher, because they’d lose the scale that helps keep prices low. Either way, no one sees a good outcome right now.

Nvidia skipped Intel’s factories and went with TSMC instead

At a press briefing about the deal, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Intel CEO Pat Kissinger were asked if Nvidia planned to use Intel’s factories. Both said maybe, someday. But they also made it clear that, for now, they’ll keep working with TSMC — Intel’s main rival — to build their new chips.

That’s a major snub. Especially since Nvidia’s whole supply chain is tied up in Taiwan, and the US government has been pushing hard for companies to diversify. Some had expected this deal to come with a manufacturing arrangement — especially since Intel supplies chips to the Pentagon and is the only large-scale US-based chipmaker doing advanced manufacturing. But no such deal happened.

Anshel Sag from Moor Insights & Strategy told Yahoo Finance, “I was expecting that Nvidia was going to announce some sort of contract manufacturing deal with Intel, with the US government’s involvement.” It didn’t happen. Nvidia didn’t commit to Intel Foundry Services. They didn’t even test it. Just silence.

The US government recently bought a 10% stake in Intel, showing how much Washington cares about keeping Intel’s manufacturing alive. Right now, most cutting-edge chips are made by TSMC in Taiwan. TSMC is building plants in the US, but its core research and capacity are still overseas. That’s a huge risk, especially with China looming.

Still, Zino said the Nvidia-Intel partnership could help a little. It might make Nvidia more open to testing Intel’s foundry later. “You potentially see Nvidia start giving some token business to Intel,” he said.

For now, though, that token isn’t on the table.

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