The big picture: Intel's foundry business remains a focal point of speculation in Washington and throughout the semiconductor industry. For months, rumors have circulated about potential moves, ranging from Intel spinning off its manufacturing arm into a separate company to the US government pressuring the chipmaker to sell a significant stake to TSMC. So far, none of these scenarios has materialized.
What is clear now is that Intel faces strict structural limits on what it can do with Intel Foundry for at least the next five years.
At a recent investor conference in New York, Intel Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner signaled that while the company could sell a minority stake in its foundry business, it would avoid relinquishing control. "As long as we hold 51 percent, essentially it does not trigger," Zinsner said during Citi's 2025 Global TMT Conference. He stressed that Intel is unlikely to push its ownership below that threshold: "Our motivation will probably be not to sell below 51 percent because that would dilute investors significantly."
The U.S. government has tied strict conditions to the financial assistance Intel received under the CHIPS and Science Act – support that was not limited to grants and loans.
As part of the deal, the government also secured warrants convertible into Intel stock. These provisions take effect if Intel sells more than half of Intel Foundry or attempts to divest control of the unit. The agreement requires Intel to maintain majority ownership for at least five years, effectively ruling out a true spinoff during that period. Only after that window could Intel consider restructuring the foundry as an independent company, similar to the model rival AMD adopted in 2009 when it launched GlobalFoundries.
For Washington, that requirement carries a strategic dimension. Keeping Intel Foundry under US control ensures that advanced manufacturing capacity remains aligned with national security priorities, particularly as tensions over Taiwan's role in the global chip supply chain remain high. Allowing a foreign competitor or even a financial consortium to take control could undermine those objectives.
Intel itself does not exercise full autonomy over its factories today. While the company owns and operates foundries in the US, Ireland, Israel, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, and China, several of its most advanced plants are structured as joint ventures through the Semiconductor Co-Investment Program launched in 2022.
Under SCIP, Intel raised billions in outside capital without violating the government's 51 percent rule. But those investments came at a cost: the company no longer holds full ownership of some of its key sites.
In Arizona, Intel's Fab 52 and Fab 62 are structured as 51 – 49 joint ventures with Brookfield Infrastructure, while Fab 34 in Ireland follows the same model with Apollo Global Management. Intel retains majority equity and full operational control, but profits and capital obligations are shared with its partners.
That arrangement has allowed Intel to free up funds for expansion without ceding control of its foundry business to outside stakeholders. Similar structures could be used if the company proceeds with its long-delayed Silicon Heartland campus in Ohio, a $100 billion project now not expected to bring its first fab online until 2030.
Whether Intel could pursue a public offering for the foundry unit remains an open but complicated question. Selling stock in Intel Foundry would not necessarily mean giving up ownership of individual fabs, Zinsner explained. Instead, such an offering would give investors exposure to the broader business, including its process technology, customer contracts, and design services.
The co-ownership of Fab 52, Fab 62, and Fab 34, however, introduces valuation challenges. Because Intel does not collect 100 percent of the profits from those sites, any IPO would need to account for minority interests. Investors would see the foundry as a business that manages cutting-edge resources but does not fully own them, a factor likely to reduce its market valuation.
Analysts caution that if Intel tried to sell as much as 49 percent of Intel Foundry through an IPO, buyers would inevitably apply a discount to reflect the fact that parts of the business are not wholly owned. Paired with strict US ownership requirements, that financial reality makes the path to a spinoff or even a partial public listing in the near term look narrow.