Qualcomm reportedly explores buying portions of Intel's PC client business

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Qualcomm could be Intel's way out of its financial problems.

Qualcomm, Snapdragon X Elite
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Qualcomm is allegedly exploring the possibility of taking over parts of Intel's design business, particularly the PC client segment, to expand its product offerings, reports Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the matter. While no formal discussions have occurred, the report says that Intel is considering selling off business units due to financial challenges, including a decline in its PC division's performance.

Qualcomm has long eyed the PC business with its Snapdragon processors, but its attempts with always-connected PCs in 2017 – 2020 were unsuccessful. With its Snapdragon X processors, which feature general-purpose cores originally designed by Nuvia (by ex-Apple engineers), the company finally won dozens of design wins. On paper, Qualcomm is a promising contender for the rather colossal PC market. 

However, this is not enough for the company as it explores the buyout of Intel's client PC design division, which develops chips for laptops and desktops. This unit has caught Qualcomm's attention as Intel faces difficulties maintaining its cash flow and shedding assets. However, according to Reuters, Qualcomm is less interested in other Intel divisions, such as its server segment, which it sees as less aligned with its business goals. Acquiring a third-party client PC business would align with the company's focus on consumer applications, as Qualcomm is currently the No. 1 supplier of smartphone application processors. 

According to an Intel spokesperson, Qualcomm has not approached Intel for a formal deal. When approached by Reuters, the spokesperson reiterated the company's commitment to its PC business. It is unsurprising, as Intel's PC unit earned the company $7.4 billion in revenue (up 9% year-over-year) and $2.4 billion in operating income in the second quarter alone. While the PC market is shrinking, it is hard to believe that Intel could dispose of its highly profitable client PC unit soon.

The report claims Qualcomm has worked on potential acquisition plans for several months. The company's interest in Intel's design business is still in the exploratory phase, with no final decisions or actual proposals made. Sources of the matter note that these plans could evolve or change entirely.

According to Reuters, Intel's board is set to review further cost-cutting options, including potentially selling its FPGA unit, Altera, as part of a broader effort to save cash. Selling off Altera or part of MobileEye would align with Intel's disposal of non-core assets in recent quarters.

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

39 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Flemkopf
    What's happening at Intel? I knew they've been struggling to get new processes up and running since 14nm and 10nm (Tick, Tock, Sproing, Thunk, Stomp, ARGH!!), but this is something else. They were generally running over a $70 billion a year revenue until Q2 '22 when it all went to pot. Now they're closer to $55 billion and cancelling projects left and right. Serious, I didn't call Intel falling apart like this.
    Reply
  • Marlin1975
    Flemkopf said:
    What's happening at Intel? I knew they've been struggling to get new processes up and running since 14nm and 10nm (Tick, Tock, Sproing, Thunk, Stomp, ARGH!!), but this is something else. They were generally running over a $70 billion a year revenue until Q2 '22 when it all went to pot. Now they're closer to $55 billion and cancelling projects left and right. Serious, I didn't call Intel falling apart like this.


    Intel comes off like a gambling addict. They are just sure the next set of numbers will go their way. So they keep rosy appearances up while the place is on fire. Either that or the upper level executives are being lied to, or lying to us, about what's really going on.

    I see their stock dropping more and maybe more fire sales and layoffs, esp if 18a is as bad as other outside firms are saying it is.
    Reply
  • Notton
    Intel client PC division is pretty vague.
    Does that include an x86-64 license?
    or is it on the marketing (vPro, etc.)

    Also, wouldn't that be worse? Qualcomm would directly compete against itself with ARM and x86 designs.
    On top of which you'll now get Qualcomm tax pricing.
    $2000 for an i5? no thanks
    Reply
  • parkerthon
    Flemkopf said:
    What's happening at Intel? I knew they've been struggling to get new processes up and running since 14nm and 10nm (Tick, Tock, Sproing, Thunk, Stomp, ARGH!!), but this is something else. They were generally running over a $70 billion a year revenue until Q2 '22 when it all went to pot. Now they're closer to $55 billion and cancelling projects left and right. Serious, I didn't call Intel falling apart like this.
    I have been waiting for the axe to fall on Intel for at least 5 years now, but kept hoping they would make a come back. If you think about it, Intel has been stagnant and heavily risk avoidant, milking their dominance in the pc/server market for decades which has contributed to their situation now. There is a long list of huge missed opportunities that they passed on mostly because they refused to accept RISC type processing is the future. Off the top of my head… taking forever to make GPU’s, partnering with Apple to make a mobile chip strike me as really bad calls. Then there is their foundry business that rapidly fell behind in the race to make traditional cpus denser. TSMC has been killing them. This was obvious years ago, but they managed to keep up appearances they could make a come back. The last straw, I think, has been their defective cpus. News articles don’t mention it, but anyone that gives a crap about stability while relying on high cpu performance thinks Intel products are toxic these days. They clearly tried to cover it up and handled pr on the issue about as poorly as any company could. It sounds like their foundry business basically fell way behind and their efforts to get it competitive with TSMC is simply not materializing in time. This plus really bad vision by their leadership has killed their outlook on all fronts. It just took investors way too long to understand how bad things had become.

    Really sad. This once great American tech company is about to be stripped down by investors for parts. This will also blow a huge hole in the CHIPS act likely preventing it from ever strategically accomplishing what the US needs it to(having some global/domestic diversity in foundry supply chains). I’m in Ohio where a huge CHIPS investment was planned by Intel and residents that care about economic news are bereft by Intel’s flailing.
    Reply
  • parkerthon
    Notton said:
    Intel client PC division is pretty vague.
    Does that include an x86-64 license?
    or is it on the marketing (vPro, etc.)

    Also, wouldn't that be worse? Qualcomm would directly compete against itself with ARM and x86 designs.
    On top of which you'll now get Qualcomm tax pricing.
    $2000 for an i5? no thanks
    They’ll take intel’s x86 massive customer base and gradually push customers to adopt ARM products. I think this is inevitable anyway. Windows on ARM is writing on the wall. Traditional cpus are just too power hungry for PC laptops anymore especially when you compare against Apple silicon. The only place it doesn’t make sense to use ARM is servers and workstations which are becoming less and less of a market these days anyway. That’s why they don’t want that business, but I’m not sure how they would split it apart.
    Reply
  • TheSecondPower
    Agreements with AMD mean that x86-64 ISA is not for sale. Also the "ARM and RISC are more efficient" story has been running too long. Intel started learning from RISC in the 1990s. That was 3 decades ago. The Ryzen 300 and Snapdragon X chips are nearly perfectly matched in efficiency, with the Snapdragon X sipping less power but also performing worse in many cases.

    Intel has been a much better company for the PC world than Qualcomm. Developing software or operating systems to support literally every Intel and AMD CPU on the market is relatively straightforward. Whereas Linux support for Snapdragon X is being added literally one laptop at a time. And Intel's Linux GPU drivers are pretty good.

    It is funny (and sad) that the US poured an enormous amount of taxpayer money into domestic foundries and now the only US processor foundry company is on the verge of financial ruin.

    It's also funny that everyone is still blaming the business-degree CEOs at Intel (who I think do deserve blame for starting this problem) but no one seems to consider that if Intel's engineer CEO was a little more savvy with money, Intel would probably have cut spending before running out of money, and would be in a better position to stay afloat through the Lunar Lake, Granite Rapids, and Arrow Lake releases all the way through until Intel 18A can generate revenue.
    Reply
  • vanadiel007
    Intel is like watching a comet slowly disintegrating as it is entering the atmosphere.
    I don't believe they are going to survive this one.

    It would actually be exciting to see someone take over some of their business and develop something different than an Intel CPU.

    Time will tell.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    TheSecondPower said:
    It's also funny that everyone is still blaming the business-degree CEOs at Intel (who I think do deserve blame for starting this problem) but no one seems to consider that if Intel's engineer CEO was a little more savvy with money, Intel would probably have cut spending before running out of money, and would be in a better position to stay afloat through the Lunar Lake, Granite Rapids, and Arrow Lake releases all the way through until Intel 18A can generate revenue.
    If you're referring to Gelsinger he's been selling off/shutting down divisions since he started. There's only so much you can cut before you start in on important parts. He probably should have suspended the dividend earlier, but that would have likely caused a stock hit they were trying to avoid. The cost of manufacturing MTL, LNL and now ARL (however much us being made on TSMC, potentially all of it) are also likely higher than anyone would have expected which cuts into margins.
    Reply
  • endocine
    Intel, sold for parts like an old PC that you don't want anymore
    Reply
  • TheSecondPower
    thestryker said:
    If you're referring to Gelsinger he's been selling off/shutting down divisions since he started. There's only so much you can cut before you start in on important parts. He probably should have suspended the dividend earlier, but that would have likely caused a stock hit they were trying to avoid. The cost of manufacturing MTL, LNL and now ARL (however much us being made on TSMC, potentially all of it) are also likely higher than anyone would have expected which cuts into margins.
    I think selling off non-core businesses like Solidigm makes a lot of sense so Intel can focus on a core competency. However if Solidigm was profitable that could've been continuous income to help keep the core business afloat for now. But what I'm talking about is streamlining the core business. Intel is doing layoffs now. It sounds like Intel has been doing the same thing as its competitors but with a bigger team and more expenses. It's a hard problem but that should've started changing earlier.
    Reply