Apple had a long-lasting partnership with Intel until the company decided to move away from the chip designer and manufacturer and rely on its own silicon for its MacBooks. With TSMC, Apple’s relationship started in 2014, with the Taiwanese company shipping the Apple A8 chip. TSMC has remained the only chip supplier ever since. Now, Apple is trying to restore its partnership with Intel.
Numerous reports suggest that Apple has been looking to diversify away from TSMC for quite some time, but with the supply chain disruptions and chip shortage, fueled by the AI data centers, the matter has become more urgent in recent months. Even Apple admitted in its last earnings call that its reliance on TSMC alone might prove to be problematic in the future.
That’s why Apple is in the early stages of negotiations with Intel and Samsung. In fact, key Apple executives have already visited Samsung’s Texas factory, which is expected to start production of advanced chips relatively soon.
The shift in strategy comes right after Apple made a reorganization by merging the hardware engineering and hardware technologies teams, led by Johny Srouji, the company’s Chief Hardware Officer.
The main hurdle for Apple is to find a chip manufacturer that’s able to deliver chips at scale and be consistent enough with its yields. And so far, only TSMC has met Apple’s requirements, so Intel and Samsung will have to step up their game in order to secure those much-needed orders from Apple.