Intel rises as the company seeks Apple as next big backer amid turnaround push, per Bloomberg report

Not content with just having the US government and Nvidia as new shareholders, Intel has approached Apple about a possible investment as it seeks to revive its business, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The two companies have floated ideas on working more closely, though the discussions are “early-stage" and may not lead to a deal. Intel has also reached out to other companies about potential partnerships.

The move comes after a wave of equity investments in the chipmaker: last week, Nvidia committed $5 billion to acquire a stake in Intel and codevelop data center and PC chips. In August, SoftBank bought $2 billion worth of Intel shares, and the US government secured an $8.9 billion (~10%) stake to support domestic chip production.

In recent years, Intel has been losing ground to rivals, with sales peaking at $77.9 billion in 2020 and declining since. The company has also scaled back plans for new chip factories and is cutting about 22% of its workforce by the end of this year.

For Apple, the talk revives a long relationship with Intel: Apple sourced its Mac processors from Intel since 2006 before switching to its own in-house silicon in 2020.

Shares of Intel jumped nearly 4% in premarket trading Thursday, and are up 42% year to date. Apple is down less than 1% premarket.