Out of curiosity, what would make Intel interesting to Apple? Apple already acquired Intel's modem business and they have their own CPU and GPU.
Yes Congressman, we agree to take over Intel fabs if you agree to drop this antitrust nonsense. And we would like our $20B from Google back too.
But I'm just speculating.
Apple currently really enjoys being on the very latest process node. It's not a given that they could match or improve on that with their own fab (Sure, there is a lot of VLSI design and materials experience, but that does not automatically translate into a state of the art process, and is unlikely to contain the magic ingredient to get Intel back on top).
And in the unlikely case it SHOULD work, that will only invite further regulatory headaches.
Just speculating.
I can, but it's not technical. Intel has a huge advantage in several markets, and has strong relationships with many OEMs like Dell. Intel, even though their market cap is now a fraction of AMD's, still has a huge lead in marketshare in OEM systems and servers. (Several other posts in this thread have real numbers.)
If AMD bought out Intel, it would now get all of that, and be able to push all these OEM and server customers into AMD's solutions instead.
Who is then? Apple is of course still ahead in lower power chips. But Apple is not in the the desktop/workstation/server market and there are hardly any alternatives to AMD or Intel there.
e.g. M2 Ultra Apple's fastest "desktop" CPU is slower than the 14700K you can get for $350. Seems pretty competitive...
Doubt.
Neither of the companies is particularly competitive on either processor or GPU architecture nor fabrication.
A merger of those entities looks like nothing but a recipe for further x86 stagnation and an even quicker death for the entities involved imho.
In particular I cannot see what's good in it for AMD. The fabs have no use/clear path forward. Their processors/gpu either match our outmatch the Intel offering.
A Broadcom/Apple takeover of Intel sounds much more reasonable.