Infused them with money? If you are talking about the legal settlement then this is a very charitable description on what happened from Intels side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....

Your link is broken, below is the correct one. More importantly, Intel wants AMD to stay alive and keep vaguely competing with them since they avoid significantly worse anti-trust rulings in the future (here is a current one[1]) due to there being no active x86-64 competitors.

Additionally, think about Google, Amazon, MS Azure and all the other big players who push large volume on Intel's higher end SKUs, what do you think they will do if Intel becomes their sole source vendor? I'd predict all 3 will take their current dabbling in ARM servers and amp it up, since being captured by a single vendor is a serious issue for all of them.

Correct Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....

1 - http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/12/5803442/intel-nearly-1-and...

Your correct link also broke. I didn't see why, but now I realized the period at the end is what's messing it up. You have to put it manually.

I don't remember where I read this, but as I understand it, Intel is required by various contracts (military, aerospace, various other mission-critical stuff) to not become a monopoly on certain classes of products. In other words, if AMD went under, Intel would have to give the x86 license to someone else.

Thanks! But what does "infused them with money" money mean? They wrote them a check for a few billion dollars? Would you mind explaining like I'm completely clueless (which I kind of am)? I literally don't know (or if I did, remember) anything about this so the missing details are not helping. Thanks!

Intel actually gave about 1.25B$ to AMD in 2009, in order to rid itself of an unfair competition and patent claim. This helped AMD to stay afloat. Without it, Intel would be in an effective monopoly position and that would bring in all sorts of restrictions (due to competition laws particularly in the US and EU) it doesn't want to have.

http://www.tgdaily.com/business/44723-amd-to-use-intel-cash-...