Fall Intel, from icon to government project US

POR: Trip Mickle Y Don Clark/The New York Times

San Francisco – Intel helped beat A combat aircraft.

The company received it partly after the philosophy of the business of its third employee, Andy Gro, who held high positions from 1979 to 2005 and was the executive director from 1987 to 1998. He made the company a major supplier inquis Used in most computers, promoting a culture of constructive confrontation rooted in their personal motto: only paranoid survive.

But after the departure of Grow, Intel lost his benefit. The campaign lacked smartphone and artificial intelligence revolutions. He overcome his experience in the production of chips. And last month he became a beneficiary of one of the US government’s largest investment in the 2008 financial crisis Donald J. Trump He announced an agreement on the acquisition of 10 percent participation in business, approximately $ 8.9 billion.

Trajectory Intel From the icon to the government project, it makes the latest to experience one of the oldest truths in the technology industry: even the most powerful companies can fall.

International Weekly Nytimes Bulletin

Top reports and stories with the seal of the best journalism New York Times.

Intel has avoided falling others for many years due to the fact that its co -founders and its first employees extended their domain. But I couldn’t keep my foot in front of the destructive forces Silicone valley Eternally, said David Joof, who was part of the Intel Council for almost 30 years and is Professor Harvard Business School.

Intel was born in 1968, when Robert Noce, inventor microchipAnd Gordon Moore, which predicted that the performance of the chips would increase in geometric progression, left semiconductor forrercils to find a competitor. They brought Gro, an engineer of Hungarian origin with a gift for administrative discipline.

In 1981, IBM began using Intel chips on its personal computers. Then, in 1985, Microsoft developed its Windows software to work in Intel. The combination created the Wintel era when most computers in the world had Windows and Intel Artenw.

Income Microsoft And Intel shot himself, making them two most valuable companies in the world in the mid -1990s.

But in the coming years the cracks began to appear. Paul Otelini, Intel Executive Director from 2005 to 2013, rejected Apple’s application to make chips for the first iPhone. Thought the price offered Apple It was too low. He subsequently regretted: “The world would be completely different if we did it,” he said in the Atlantic in 2013.

Intel often promoted projects for new products just to cancel them by losing the patient’s patience or disappointing Technology.

One such projects was a chip capable of imitating chips known as graphics that are crucial for video games and eventually promoting AI applications. But the graphic chip did not work, so Intel refused it.

Intel also lagged behind the production of semiconductors with a delay in improving new production processes. This allowed competitors as Taiga Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung Electronics will exceed it between 2015 and 2019.

In 2021, Intel asked Pat Heliner, a former senior executive director, return. Gelsinger has developed an Intel Leadership Plan in production through the introduction of five new production processes in four years.

But, as Intel focused on production, the demand for graphic processing units, lifted in 2022 and 2023 after launching artificial intelligence, Openai used components to prepare their system Chatgpt. Nvidia, Intel’s competitor, specialized in these chips. Intel sales collapsed when Cloud Computing turned to Nvidia chips.

Last December, Intel fired Helsingger and appointed Lip-Bu Tan, Semiconductor Executive to activate the company.

Meanwhile, Nvidia has become the most valuable public company in the world, the cost of more than $ 4.1 million. Intel is estimated at $ 107 billion.

© NEW York Times 2025