Intel Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It designs, manufactures, and sells computer components such as central processing units (CPUs) and related products for business and consumer markets. Intel was the world's third-largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue in 2024 and has been included in the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue since 2007. It was one of the first companies listed on Nasdaq.
Intel supplies microprocessors for most manufacturers of computer systems, and is one of the developers of the x86 series of instruction sets found in most personal computers (PCs). It also manufactures chipsets, network interface controllers, flash memory, graphics processing units (GPUs), and other devices related to communications and computing. Intel has a strong presence in the general-purpose and gaming PC market with its Intel Core line of CPUs and Intel Arc series of GPUs.
Intel was founded in 1968 by engineers Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, along with investor Arthur Rock, and is associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove. The company was a key component of the rise of Silicon Valley as a high-tech center, and was an early developer of static (SRAM) and dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips, which represented the majority of its business until 1981. Although Intel created the world's first commercial microprocessor chip—the Intel 4004—in 1971, it was not until the success of the PC in the early 1980s that this became its primary business.
During the 1990s, the partnership between Microsoft Windows and Intel—known as Wintel—shaped the PC market, solidifying Intel's position. As a result, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs in the mid-to-late 1990s, fostering the industry's rapid growth. During this period, it became the dominant supplier of CPUs, and was known for aggressive and anti-competitive tactics in defense of its position, as well as tensions with Microsoft over the PC industry's direction. Since the 2000s and especially the late 2010s, competition from AMD has reduced Intel's dominance and market share, though it continues to lead the x86 market in the 2020s by a wide margin.
History
Origins
Intel was incorporated in Mountain View, California, on July 18, 1968, by Gordon E. Moore, a chemist; Robert Noyce, a physicist and co-inventor of the integrated circuit; and Arthur Rock, an investor and venture capitalist. Moore and Noyce had left Fairchild Semiconductor, where they were part of the "traitorous eight" who founded it. There were originally 500,000 shares outstanding of which Noyce bought 245,000 shares, Moore 245,000 shares, and Rock 10,000 shares; all at $1 per share. Rock offered $2,500,000 of convertible debentures to a limited group of private investors (equivalent to $21 million in 2022), convertible at $5 per share. Two years later, Intel became a public company via an initial public offering (IPO), raising $6.8 million ($23.50 per share). Intel was one of the first companies—and the oldest—to be listed on the then-newly established National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ). Intel's third employee was Andy Grove, a chemical engineer, who ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s.
In deciding on a name, Moore and Noyce quickly rejected "Moore Noyce", a near-homophone for "more noise" – an ill-suited name for an electronics company, since noise in electronics is usually undesirable and typically associated with bad interference. Instead, they founded the company as NM Electronics on July 18, 1968, but by the end of the month had changed the name to Intel, which stood for Integrated Electronics. Since "Intel" was already trademarked by the hotel chain Intelco, it had to buy the rights for the name.
Early history
At its founding, Intel was distinguished by its ability to make logic circuits using semiconductor devices. The founders' goal was the semiconductor memory market, widely predicted to replace magnetic-core memory. Its first product, a quick entry into the small, high-speed memory market in 1969, was the 3101 Schottky TTL bipolar 64-bit static random-access memory (SRAM), which was nearly twice as fast as earlier Schottky diode implementations by Fairchild and the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan. In the same year, Intel also produced the 3301 Schottky bipolar 1024-bit read-only memory (ROM) and the first commercial metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) silicon gate SRAM chip, the 256-bit 1101.
While the 1101 was a significant advance, its complex static cell structure made it too slow and costly for mainframe computer memories. The three-transistor cell implemented in the first commercially available dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), the 1103 released in 1970, solved these issues. The 1103 was the bestselling semiconductor memory chip in the world by 1972, as it replaced core memory in many applications. Intel's business grew during the 1970s as it expanded and improved its manufacturing processes and produced a wider range of products, still dominated by various memory devices.
Intel created the first commercially available microprocessor, the Intel 4004, in 1971. The microprocessor represented a notable advance in the technology of integrated circuitry, as it miniaturized the central processing unit of a computer, which then made it possible for small machines to perform calculations that in the past only very large machines could do. Considerable technological innovation was needed before the microprocessor could become the basis of what was first known as a "mini computer" and then a "personal computer". Subsequently, Intel would create one of the first microcomputers in 1973.
Intel opened its first international manufacturing facility in 1972, in Malaysia, which would host multiple Intel operations, before opening assembly facilities and semiconductor plants in Singapore and Jerusalem, Israel, in the early 1980s, and manufacturing and development centers in China, India, and Costa Rica in the 1990s. By the early 1980s, its business was dominated by DRAM chips. However, increased competition from Japanese semiconductor manufacturers had, by 1983, dramatically reduced the profitability of this market. The growing success of the IBM personal computer, based on an Intel microprocessor, was among factors that convinced Gordon Moore (CEO since 1975) to shift the company's focus to microprocessors and to change fundamental aspects of that business model. Moore's decision to sole-source Intel's model 80386 chip played into the company's continuing success.
By the end of the 1980s, buoyed by its position as microprocessor supplier to IBM and IBM's competitors within the rapidly growing personal computer market, Intel embarked on 10 years of unprecedented growth as the primary and most profitable hardware supplier to the PC industry, part of the winning "Wintel" combination of Intel CPUs running Microsoft Windows. This partnership would become instrumental in shaping the PC landscape, and solidified Intel's position on the market. Moore handed over his position as CEO to Andy Grove in 1987. By launching its Intel Inside marketing campaign in 1991, Intel was able to associate brand loyalty with consumer selection, so that by the end of the 1990s, its line of Pentium processors had become a household name.
During that period, it became the dominant supplier of PC microprocessors and was known for aggressive and anti-competitive tactics in defense of its market position, particularly against AMD, as well as a struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry. In addition, the company is considered a key component of the rise of Silicon Valley as a high-tech center between the 1970s and 2000s.
Challenges to dominance (2000s)
As Intel exited other markets, the company depended so much on the 80386 and its successors that a marketing employee said that "there's only one product, and Andy Grove's the product manager". After 2000, growth in demand for high-end microprocessors slowed. Competitors, most notably AMD (Intel's largest competitor in its primary x86 architecture market), garnered significant market share, initially in low-end and mid-range processors but ultimately across the product range. Intel's dominant position in its core market was greatly reduced, mostly due to the controversial NetBurst microarchitecture. In the early 2000s, then-CEO, Craig Barrett attempted to diversify the company's business beyond semiconductors, but few of these activities were ultimately successful.
Litigation
Intel was embroiled in litigation for several years. U.S. law did not initially recognize intellectual property rights related to microprocessor topology (circuit layouts), until the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984, a law sought by Intel and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). During the late 1980s and 1990s (after this law was passed), Intel also sued companies that tried to develop competitor chips to the 80386 CPU. The lawsuits were noted to significantly burden the competition with legal bills, even if Intel lost the suits. Antitrust allegations had been simmering since the early 1990s and had been the cause of one lawsuit against Intel in 1991. In 2004 and 2005, AMD brought further claims against Intel related to unfair competition.
Reorganization and success with Intel Core (2005–2015)
In 2005, CEO Paul Otellini reorganized the company to refocus its core processor and chipset business on platforms (enterprise, digital home, digital health, and mobility).
On June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, announced that Apple would be using Intel's x86 processors for its Macintosh computers, switching from the PowerPC architecture developed by the AIM alliance. This was seen as a win for Intel; an analyst called the move "risky" and "foolish", as Intel's current offerings at the time were considered to be behind those of AMD and IBM.
In 2006, Intel unveiled its Core microarchitecture; the product range was perceived as an exceptional leap in processor performance that at a stroke regained much of its leadership of the field. In 2008, Intel had another advance when it introduced the Penryn microarchitecture, fabricated using the 45 nm process node. Later that year, Intel released a processor with the Nehalem architecture to positive reception.
On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel's XScale assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale processor business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $600 million and the assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses, and the acquisition completed on November 9, 2006.
In 2008, Intel spun off key assets of a solar startup business effort to form an independent company, SpectraWatt Incorporated. In 2011, SpectraWatt filed for bankruptcy.
In February 2011, Intel began to build a new microprocessor manufacturing facility in Chandler, Arizona, completed in 2013 at a cost of $5 billion. The building is now the 10 nm-certified Fab 42 and is connected to the other Fabs (12, 22, 32) on Ocotillo Campus via an enclosed bridge known as the Link. The company produces three-quarters of its products in the United States, although three-quarters of its revenue come from overseas.
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013. Intel is part of the coalition of public and private organizations that includes Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Led by Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI sought to make Internet access more affordable to broaden access in the developing world, where only 31% of people were online. Google would help lower Internet access prices to below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.
Attempts at entering the smartphone market
In April 2011, Intel began a pilot project with ZTE Corporation to produce smartphones using the Intel Atom processor for China's domestic market. In December 2011, Intel announced that it reorganized several of its business units into a new mobile and communications group that would be responsible for the company's smartphone, tablet, and wireless efforts. Intel planned to introduce Medfield – a processor for tablets and smartphones – to the market in 2012, as an effort to compete with Arm. As a 32-nanometer processor, Medfield is designed to be energy-efficient, one of Arm's chips' core features.
Intel's partnership with Google was announced at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) 2011 in San Francisco, California. In January 2012, Google announced Android 2.3, supporting Intel's Atom microprocessor. In 2013, Intel's Kirk Skaugen said that Intel's exclusive focus on Microsoft platforms was a thing of the past and that it would now support all "tier-one operating systems" such as Linux, Android, iOS, and ChromeOS.
In 2014, Intel dismissed thousands of employees in response to "evolving market trends", and offered to subsidize manufacturers for the extra costs involved in using Intel chips in their tablets. In April 2016, Intel cancelled the SoFIA platform and the Broxton Atom SoC for smartphones, effectively leaving the smartphone market.
Intel custom foundry
Finding itself with excess fab capacity after the failure of the Ultrabook to gain market traction and with PC sales declining, in 2013 Intel reached a foundry agreement to produce chips for Altera using a 14 nm process. General Manager of Intel's custom foundry division Sunit Rikhi indicated that Intel would pursue further such deals in the future. This was after poor sales of Windows 8 hardware caused a major retrenchment for most of the major semiconductor manufacturers, except for Qualcomm, which continued to see healthy purchases from its largest customer, Apple.
As of July 2013, five companies were using Intel's fabs via the Intel Custom Foundry division: Achronix, Tabula, Netronome, Microsemi, and Panasonic – most are field-programmable gate array (FPGA) makers, but Netronome designs network processors. Only Achronix began shipping chips made by Intel using the 22 nm Tri-Gate process. Several other customers also exist but were not announced at the time.
The foundry business was closed in 2018 due to Intel's issues with its manufacturing.
Security and manufacturing challenges (2016–2021)
Intel continued its Tick–tock model of a microarchitecture change followed by a die shrink until the 6th-generation Core family based on the Skylake microarchitecture. This model was deprecated in 2016, with the release of the 7th-generation Core family (codenamed Kaby Lake), ushering in the process–architecture–optimization model. As Intel struggled to shrink its process node from 14 nm to 10 nm, processor development slowed and the company continued to use the Skylake microarchitecture until 2020, albeit with optimizations.
10 nm process node issues
While Intel originally planned to introduce 10 nm products in 2016, it later became apparent that there were manufacturing issues with the node. The first microprocessor under that node, Cannon Lake (marketed as 8th-generation Core), was released in small quantities in 2018. The company first delayed the mass production of its 10 nm products to 2017. They later delayed mass production to 2018, and then to 2019. Despite rumors of the process being cancelled, Intel finally introduced mass-produced 10 nm 10th-generation Intel Core mobile processors (codenamed "Ice Lake") in September 2019.
Intel later acknowledged that the strategy to shrink to 10 nm was too aggressive. While other foundries used up to four steps in 10 nm or 7 nm processes, the company's 10 nm process required up to five or six multi-pattern steps. In addition, Intel's 10 nm process is more dense than its counterpart processes from other foundries. Since Intel's microarchitecture and process node development were coupled, processor development stagnated.
Security flaws
In early January 2018, it was reported that all Intel processors made since 1995 (besides Intel Itanium and pre-2013 Intel Atom) had been subject to two security flaws dubbed Meltdown and Spectre.
Renewed competition and other developments (2018–present)
Due to Intel's issues with its 10 nm process node and the company's slow processor development, the company now found itself in a market with intense competition. The company's main competitor, AMD, introduced the Zen microarchitecture and a new chiplet-based design to critical acclaim. Since its introduction, AMD, once unable to compete with Intel in the high-end CPU market, has undergone a resurgence, and Intel's dominance and market share have considerably decreased. In addition, Apple began to transition away from the x86 architecture and Intel processors to its own Apple silicon for its Macintosh computers in 2020. The transition is expected to affect Intel minimally; however, it might prompt other PC manufacturers to reevaluate their reliance on Intel and the x86 architecture.
'IDM 2.0' strategy
On March 23, 2021, chief executive officer (CEO) Pat Gelsinger laid out new plans for the company. These include a new strategy, called IDM 2.0, that includes investments in manufacturing facilities, use of both internal and external foundries, and a new foundry business called Intel Foundry Services (IFS), a standalone business unit. Unlike Intel Custom Foundry, IFS will offer a combination of packaging and process technology, and Intel's intellectual property portfolio including x86 cores. Other plans for the company include a partnership with IBM and a new event for developers and engineers, called "Intel ON". Gelsinger also confirmed that Intel's 7 nm process was on track, and that the first products using their 7 nm process (also known as Intel 4) are Ponte Vecchio and Meteor Lake.
In January 2022, Intel selected New Albany, Ohio, near Columbus, Ohio, as the site for a major new manufacturing facility. The facility will cost at least $20 billion. The company expected the facility to begin producing chips by 2025. The same year Intel also chose Magdeburg, Germany, as a site for two new chip mega factories for €17 billion (topping Tesla's Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg manufacturing plant investment in Brandenburg, Germany). The start of the construction was initially planned for 2023, but this was postponed to late 2024, while the production start was scheduled for 2027. Including subcontractors, this was expected to create 10,000 new jobs.
In August 2022, Intel signed a $30 billion partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to fund its then-recent factory expansions. As part of the deal, Intel would have a controlling stake by funding 51% of the cost of building new chip-making facilities in Chandler. Brookfield owns the remaining 49% stake, allowing the companies to split the revenue from those facilities.
On January 31, 2023, as part of $3 billion in cost reductions, Intel announced pay cuts affecting employees above midlevel, ranging from 5% upwards. It also suspended bonuses and merit pay increases, reducing retirement plan matching. These cost reductions followed layoffs announced in the fall of 2022.
In October 2023, Intel confirmed it would be the first commercial user of high-NA extreme ultraviolet lithography tools, as part of its plan to regain process leadership from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
In December 2023, Intel unveiled Gaudi3, an artificial intelligence (AI) chip for generative AI software which launched in 2024 and competes with rival chips from Nvidia and AMD. On June 4, 2024, Intel announced AI chips for data centers, the Xeon 6 processor, aiming for better performance and power efficiency compared to its predecessor. Intel's Gaudi 2 and Gaudi 3 AI accelerators were revealed to be more cost-effective than competitors' offerings. Additionally, Intel disclosed architecture details for its Lunar Lake processors for AI PCs, which were released on September 24, 2024.
In August 2024, after posting $1.6 billion in losses for Q2, Intel announced that it would cut 15,000 jobs to save $10 billion in 2025. In order to reach this goal, the company would offer early retirement and voluntary departure options.
On November 1, 2024, it was announced that Intel would drop out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on November 8 prior to the stock market open, with Nvidia taking its place.
In July 2025, Intel confirmed that it would let go of nearly 24,000 employees—about 15% of its workforce—by the end of 2025 as part of a wider restructuring plan. Intel also announced plans to scrap tens of billions of dollars of planned investments in new chip facilities in Europe.
In September 2025, Nvidia invested $5 billion in Intel as part of a partnership to jointly develop data-center and personal-computing CPUs. The move will allow Nvidia to offer its powerful servers—the GB300 based on Blackwell GPUs—to customers using Intel's X86 architecture.
In October 2025, Intel commenced talks to add rival AMD to its foundry customers.
In April 2026, Intel announced a $14.2 billion agreement to repurchase the 49% equity interest in its facility in Ireland from Apollo Global Management, reclaiming full ownership of the site as part of a broader stabilization of its capital structure.
In May 2026, Intel's investment in SambaNova Systems received clearance from U.S. antitrust authorities, removing a key regulatory hurdle for the deal.
CEO replacement
In December 2024, Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger was ousted amid ongoing struggles to revitalize the company, which declined in stock value during his tenure. Gelsinger's resignation, effective December 1, followed a board meeting where directors expressed dissatisfaction with the slow progress of his turnaround strategy. Despite efforts to enhance Intel's manufacturing capabilities and compete with rivals like AMD and Nvidia, the company faced mounting challenges, including a $16.6 billion loss and a 60% drop in share prices since Gelsinger's appointment in 2021. After his departure, Intel appointed David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus interim co-CEOs while searching for a permanent successor. Gelsinger's exit underscored the turmoil at Intel as it grappled with its identity crisis and sought to regain its semiconductor industry position.