Intel CEO expands desire to make Apple silicon chips, “competitive fun” with Apple

In an interview with Yahoo Finance Today, Intel’s new CEO Pat Gelsinger said the ongoing competition between his company and Apple was “fun,” while saying he hoped to make amends with tech giant Cupertino.

Over the next two years, Apple will move its line of Macs away from Intel processors to Apple’s own silicon chips. Apple is already in full swing in the transition, after launching three Mac computers based on its M1 SoC. In response, Intel last week launched a marketing campaign to label Macs and ‌M1‌ as inferior to Intel processors.

Despite the bombings, Gelsinger said he hoped to have Apple as a future customer. In his interview with Yahoo Finance, Gelsinger said that Apple relies too much on its current supplier, TSMC, to manufacture Apple silicon and that Intel wants to offer its own services in return.

Apple is a customer and I hope to make it a big foundry customer, because today I depend entirely on Taiwan Semiconductor. We also want to present them with excellent options to benefit from our foundry services, just as we work with Qualcomm and Microsoft to benefit from foundry. We will provide excellent technology, some things that cannot be done anywhere else in the world.

Gelsinger attributed the recent tense competition with Apple to the fact that there is still room for innovation in the industry and the bonus that the demand for PCs is the highest in the last ten years. Gelsinger went on to say that there is “competitive fun with Apple and the Mac ecosystem.”

So obviously you’ve seen some of the competitive energies [in chipmaking] resume because there are a lot of great innovations to be made and I haven’t seen PC demand at this level in a decade and a half. The world needs more of this and there is competitive fun with Apple and the Mac ecosystem.

As part of its anti-silicon marketing campaign, Intel recently hired former “I’m a Mac” actor Justin Long to star in a series of commercials comparing “M1” Macs to Intel-powered laptops. In addition, Intel turned to Twitter for the campaign and created its own website to compare ‌M1‌ Macs with PCs.