Intel has gone from mastering the world to being a forced partner of the United States. They are bad news for Europe

Intel has just sold 10% of your company to the United States government for 8,900 million dollars. The operation confirms what many suspected: the most iconic chips manufacturer in the world can no longer survive without state help.

The panoramic. For three decades, the ‘Intel Inside’ stickers glued to millions of computers symbolized US domain in semiconductors.

• Intel and Microsoft created The era “wintel” that defined personal computing.
• In 2009, the Obama administration even presented antitrust charges against Intel for its dominant position.

Today, the company is worth 108,000 million dollars while Nvidia, its former subordinated, reaches 4.3 billion.

What has happened. Last Friday, Donald Trump announced that the United States acquired 10% Intel in exchange for promised funds under the CHIPS ACT They never arrived. It is not technically a rescue, but it looks a lot. Trump sold it as a big business: “I paid zero for Intel, it is worth approximately 11,000 million dollars” (capital letters are yours).

The reality is more complex: Intel had been waiting for those 8.9 billion already committed by the previous administration for months.

The company desperately needed money:

• Its foundry division lost $ 13.4 billion last year.
• He has fired between 8,000 and 10,900 workers.
• And the most worrying: not even Intel’s own product teams want to use their factories, preferring that TSMC manufactures their chips.

Why is it important. This operation marks a turning point on three critical fronts:

1. For Intel, It means losing business autonomy. 76% of their income comes from abroad, with China representing 29%. Now each decision will be under the political scrutiny of his government. As the company itself warns in regulatory documentsthis could “cause adverse reactions of investors, employees, clients, suppliers, foreign or competitors.”
2. For the United Statesrepresents the return of state capitalism in technology. It is the first direct government intervention in a company from the rescue of the 2008 automobile industry. Trump has already suggested that there will be more: “I will make agreements like this for our country constantly.”
3. For Europethis is especially worrying. The European Union partially depends on Intel for its ambitions of technological sovereignty in semiconductors. If the largest Western chips becomes an instrument of American industrial policy, Europe is in an even more vulnerable position against Asia.

The Trump government has already asked TSMC to help rescue Intel factories. Also He took a “golden action” in Nippon Steel and Plan to stay with part of the sales that Nvidia and AMD make to China. The message is clear: the semiconductor industry is now a national security issue.

Between the lines. Intel’s fundamental problem is not solved with public money:

• Intel failed in smartphones when he rejected to make chips for the first iPhone.
• He was late to AI while Nvidia was ahead.
• And he lost his leadership in manufacturing against TSMC, which not only has better technology but A superior business model As a pure foundry.

As pointed out Intel’s CEO himself, Lip-bu Tan, “twenty or thirty years ago we were leaders. Now the world has changed. We are not among the ten main semiconductor companies.”

Its survival depends on the success of the 18A manufacturing nodehis latest technological commitment.

And now what. Intel is now a company supported by the State, something that its own managers warned could scare customers. Meanwhile, Trump promises more similar agreementseven suggesting the creation of an American sovereign fund with participations in technology companies.

For competitors, this creates a scenario of unfair competition: AMD, Qualcomm and other companies now compete against a rival that has the US government as the main shareholder, with all that that implies in terms of government contracts and political decisions.

Senator Rand Paul He summarized it With irony: “If socialism is the Government possessing the means of production, wouldn’t the government be having part of Intel a step towards socialism?” Paradoxically, Bernie Sanders, a declared socialist, applauded the measure.

Intel went from being the symbol of American technological capitalism to become his first large semi-nationalized company of the 21st century.

• For Europe, which struggles not to be behind the technological career, it is an alarm signal: the era of the free market in semiconductors is over.

In Xataka | Intel’s fall symbolizes the end of an era: the model that dominated technology for 50 years has died

Outstanding image | Xataka