Intel's foundry business may have just landed its biggest external validation yet. According to a report from The Information, Google has placed an order with Intel Foundry to manufacture more than three million Tensor Processing Units in 2028 after months of testing Intel's advanced packaging technology — a deal that would be the largest external AI chip win in Intel Foundry's history.
Why this matters for Intel
Intel has spent years trying to establish itself as a credible alternative leading-edge foundry. The narrative shifted in recent months as the company ramped production on its 18A process and began shipping products built on its next-generation roadmap. Winning multi-million-unit volume from one of the world's largest AI infrastructure operators would be a powerful endorsement that the manufacturing pitch is no longer theoretical.
Packaging is the real prize
Google reportedly selected Intel after extensive evaluation of advanced packaging — the technology that stitches together compute dies, I/O chiplets and high-bandwidth memory inside a single AI accelerator. Intel's EMIB packaging competes directly with TSMC's CoWoS platform, the de-facto standard for NVIDIA, AMD and other AI chip designs. TSMC executives have repeatedly said demand for AI-related packaging continues to outrun supply, opening room for a second source.
NVIDIA is also looking at Intel
The Information also reports that NVIDIA is evaluating Intel technology for future products, though no production orders have been placed. The discussions reportedly center on NVIDIA's 2028 Feynman architecture, with Intel potentially handling portions of the I/O die and up to roughly 25% of advanced packaging volume via EMIB. An earlier DigiTimes report this year flagged a similar split, with TSMC continuing to produce the primary GPU compute die.
Pressure on TSMC, opportunity for Intel
The Google order would shift the conversation around supplier concentration in AI hardware — Apple, NVIDIA, AMD and Google have all historically leaned on TSMC for leading-edge silicon. Combined with surging AI cloud demand and gigawatt-scale sovereign AI buildouts, the deal slots Intel into a market where capacity is the binding constraint.
Reporting based on coverage from HotHardware, The Information and DigiTimes.