Rumor mill: Apple is considering a shift in how some of its most important components are manufactured after reaching a preliminary agreement with Intel to produce a portion of the chips used in its devices, according to people familiar with the matter. The discussions have been underway for more than a year and recently evolved into a formal arrangement, though key details remain unresolved. It is still unclear which Apple products would be covered by the deal.
The scale of Apple's hardware business makes even a limited manufacturing shift significant. The company sells more than 200 million iPhones each year, along with large volumes of Macs and iPads. Apple and Intel both declined to comment.
The talks come at a time when Apple's long-standing reliance on TSMC is under increasing strain. Although Apple designs its own chips, it depends on TSMC to manufacture them. That model has worked well for years, but growing demand for advanced manufacturing capacity has tightened supply. Competitors such as Nvidia are also competing for the same leading-edge production capacity, leaving Apple with less flexibility.
Tim Cook has acknowledged the impact. "We think, looking forward, that the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio may take several months to reach supply-demand balance," he said on a recent earnings call, pointing to ongoing constraints. The pressure has already shown up in pricing, with Apple raising the starting price of the Mac Mini shortly afterward.
Intel, meanwhile, is trying to reestablish itself as a credible manufacturing alternative. The company operates both as a chip designer and as a manufacturer through its foundry business, which produces chips for external customers. That division has struggled for years, falling behind TSMC and Samsung after a series of technical setbacks and leadership changes.
Since becoming chief executive in March 2025, Lip-Bu Tan has focused on reversing that decline by investing in newer process technologies such as Intel's 14A node and restructuring the company's leadership team.
Those internal changes have been accompanied by a broader effort to attract major customers. The US government has also played a visible role. Last year, it converted nearly $9 billion in grants into equity, taking a 10 percent stake in Intel. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has reportedly spent months meeting with senior figures across the tech industry – including Cook, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk – to encourage closer collaboration with Intel.
President Trump has also publicly – and privately – backed the effort. "I like Intel," he said in January, adding that the government had made "tens of billions of dollars" from its investment. He linked that support to a broader shift in industry alignment: "As soon as we went in, Apple went in, Nvidia went in – a lot of smart people went in."
Intel has already secured several partnerships, suggesting that the company may be gaining traction. Nvidia invested $5 billion in Intel in September and is collaborating with the company on custom data center CPUs. Intel is also reportedly working with Elon Musk on a planned chip manufacturing facility in Texas tied to the Terafab project, which is intended to produce chips for Tesla, xAI, and SpaceX.
For Apple, bringing Intel into the supply chain would represent a significant shift, even if it begins on a limited scale. The company moved away from Intel-designed processors in Macs in 2020, transitioning to its own Arm-based silicon. This time, however, the relationship would be different: Apple would continue designing its chips, while Intel would serve as a contract manufacturer.
Apple's procurement chief has signaled that discussions are ongoing, though without providing specifics. "We talk to Intel all the time," David Tom, Apple's global head of procurement, said in a February interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Whether Intel can meet Apple's standards at scale remains an open question. TSMC still maintains a significant lead in advanced manufacturing, particularly in consistency and yield at cutting-edge nodes. However, the current supply environment is forcing even the most tightly controlled hardware ecosystems to adapt.
If the agreement moves forward, it would give Apple another manufacturing option at a time when access to advanced semiconductor production has become one of the most contested resources in the tech industry. For Intel, landing Apple as a customer – even in a limited capacity – would signal that its manufacturing business is beginning to regain relevance.