None of any of those gadgets, the robots, the gizmos, none of it that we saw at CES works without the technological brain of the chips inside them. And the chip makers are in their own kind of Star Wars-esque battle to up the compute power and prove to the CES crowd and shareholders that their company will lead the AI race. For one of them, CES was a make it or break it moment. That company, Intel, whose CEO unveiled its new Panther Lake chip with the 18A processor.
I'm pleased to share that we have delivered our commitment on shipping our first 18A products.
We pushed the limit of the design and also in the process technology and the advanced packaging and all come together. Only Intel can do that all together. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger speaking to a packed house in Vegas, but his message aimed at perhaps his most important business partner, the president of the United States, who ordered the US government to take a 10% stake in the company. Intel's chief flew right from Vegas to Washington to deliver the message to the president in person. President Trump then sending his own message to the world and investors about Intel, whose stock, by the way, is up 11% today. Trump posting on Truth Social that the partnership has made quote tens of billions of dollars for the American people and quote, 'Our country is determined to bring leading edge chip manufacturing back to America.' Wouldn't have happened without my next guest. Joining me now in a Fox Business exclusive, former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who is now a general partner at the VC firm Playground Global.
I mean it's no denying that Intel's stock has done incredibly well since the United States government took a 10% stake in it back in August. If you just look at the six-month chart, I mean, this is a pretty stunning picture. And what you see is that over the past 6 months, Intel's up 94% and if you look at the six months prior to that, it was what, down 5%. Tell me how you feel about being a shareholder and having the government be a shareholder and being the fuel boosting the Intel stock rise.
Well, you know, first I'd say congratulations to the Intel team getting 18A done, getting Panther Lake, the new chip that they announced. I worked hard on those and these are your initiatives that began years ago. Yeah, and so proud of the team to get those across the line because that was really the fulfillment of the strategy that we laid out, the milestone of showing the most advanced chip back in America. And the US government coming into the cap table I think is a good thing. The national champion has the US government participating in it and obviously the stock market has seen that favorably. But the metric though is how many wafers are being built in America. That is the only thing that matters. This is a great milestone, but we have a long journey to reshore those supply chains.
That's where Intel stands out. It has the foundry or manufacturing business. That was your big strategy push several years ago when you took over at Intel. I mean, I remember you appearing with President Biden and you got that money from the CHIPS Act, which then sort of began to be the spark in just outside Columbus, Ohio, my old stomping grounds at Channel 6 Action News. I look at that and I wonder what's going on with the foundry business right now. They have a few customers, but they don't have the big names yet, Pat.
Yeah. Super critical. They have to stay on that journey. It's hard to win that manufacturing back. It took decades for it to sediment into Asia. It doesn't come back quickly. And this milestone this week was a good milestone, but it's just a milestone. We need the big chip manufacturers in the US, AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, all of those need to come back into the foundry of the US and the foundry of Intel. That's the plan. That's the strategy. And I'm certainly encouraged to see these milestones, but we have a lot more to do.
Well, for now, they're turning to Taiwan Semi in mostly Taiwan, although Taiwan Semi is building out in the United States. But how, if you were the CEO, would you go about landing an AMD or an Nvidia? Lisa Su was sitting in that chair about a month ago. I mean, we just talked to her at CES, but a month ago, I said, 'Would you trust Intel's foundry right now to manufacture chips?' And she said, 'Well, I would never say never.' She did not commit. Jensen Huang has not committed, even though he threw $5 billion at Intel, but nobody's committed. What would you do if you were CEO to grab that?
You know, I would be driving that hard. Driving what hard though? That it's on US soil. That it's on US soil. Obviously the relationship with the US government is critical in that capacity. Obviously, I view the government policies here. It's not just chips, but it's also tariff policy. It's also reshoring the supply chains to go with it. All of these things. This is hard. It took decades for them to move away. It will take a while to get them back in the US. This week was a great milestone at CES, but a lot more work needs to happen. And to me, every day you are selling those capabilities to bring foundry and wafers back to the United States.
For our investor audience who may or may not be invested in Intel, let's speak to the ones who aren't. How is this 18A process which is called a node? The node is what's needed for the manufacturing piece of it, not the design. So, how does the node become this game changer?
Yeah. First you have to get back in the game. Intel had dropped out of the game. We laid out this aggressive strategy to get back to leadership technology. 18A is that, but you have to continue. Every node has to continue on those advancements. So, you have to have the best transistors. You have to have a lot of those transistors, a lot of capacity. And then they have to be cost effective. And for that, this is a great milestone, but it's just the milestone on a long journey.
