Intel stock soars almost 25% in one week after JD Vance' new comments on the chip maker's AI future, as the US and UK refuse to sign the Paris AI summit's regulation decree

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Intel has struggled to find its footing in a silicon landscape dominated by NVIDIA, but the Trump administration's "America first" approach might have thrown the chip maker a big lifeline.

Intel research and development office in Matam business park in Haifa.
Intel has been struggling to find its footing in a silicon landscape dominated by NVIDIA. (Image credit: Getty Images | tupungato)

Intel has not had a good few years, but things might be looking up for the beleaguered chip maker.

Over the past year, Intel has laid off thousands upon thousands of staff, following its disastrous attempts to build a home-grown chip fabrication business, typically known as Intel Foundry. The firm saw its valuation practically wiped out over the past few years as a result, with its market cap shrinking to lows not seen since the mid 90s.

Investors have largely been placing their bets on NVIDIA in the artificial intelligence wars, given that the server technology built by the firm has become the de facto default for building generative AI platforms. Microsoft, Meta, xAI, and others have placed orders in the multi-billions for chips from NVIDIA for their data centers, leaving Intel and AMD in the dust. However, the political landscape might just be turning in Intel's favor.

At the recent Paris AI summit led by France, U.S. Vice President JD Vance shared some interesting comments during his speech (via Barron), which seem to have excited investors.

“The Trump administration believes AI will have countless revolutionary applications in economic innovation, job creation, national security, healthcare, free expression and beyond. [...] To safeguard America’s advantage the Trump administration will ensure that the most powerful AI systems are built in the U.S. with American designed and manufactured chips."

Indeed, the United States has been trying to limit dependence on countries like Taiwan and China for building out its AI aspirations. Both the Democrats, and Republicans have lobbied to build home-grown semiconductor solutions, to reduce the dependence on TSMC. The firm produces some 90%+ of the world's most sought-after chips, and the Trump administration has targeted Taiwan with tariffs in an attempt to force businesses to consider home-grown solutions instead.

For the United States, AI is a national security issue

Intel's share price has enjoyed a nice bounce. (Image credit: Bing)

JD Vance's comments were seen by many investors as a positive sign of more support for Intel, which remains a significant player in the space. Intel might have missed out on opportunities to be a bigger player with smartphones, server tech, and graphics processing, but it is enjoying a lot of home-grown support via the CHIPS act, which allocated billions in funding to United States-based companies.

For the United States and other western countries, artificial intelligence is increasingly seen as a national security issue. Indeed, lots of western tech firms saw their stock prices battered when a Chinese start up, with its DeepSeek model, seemed to reproduce OpenAI's ChatGPT results for far cheaper.

The first countries to really achieve true "AGI" in sci-fi terms could see rapid advancement in technological breakthroughs, with computers able to understand context and experiment far more rapidly than humans. To that end, the Paris AI Action Summit aimed to draw nations into an agreement to regulate AI development, to focus on making it "open, ethical, safe, and secure," given the potential the technology has to actually do serious harm to humanity as well. The United States and United Kingdom buddied up to refuse signing the act. JD Vance criticized the regulations, saying that it would "kill an industry that is just starting to take off," while a UK government spokesperson said "it didn't provide enough practical clarity."

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Jez Corden
Jez Corden
Executive Editor

Jez Corden is the Executive Editor at Windows Central, focusing primarily on all things Xbox and gaming. Jez is known for breaking exclusive news and analysis as relates to the Microsoft ecosystem while being powered by tea. Follow on Twitter (X) and Threads, and listen to his XB2 Podcast, all about, you guessed it, Xbox!

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • GraniteStateColin
    I'm torn on this. I'd like to see Intel and the U.S. more broadly do better with chips, both for the sake of the manufacturing jobs and also as a national security matter (safer to make them here), but generally these protective efforts make the companies weaker and less competitive. If Intel can't stand on its own, does this protection do anything beyond slowing its decline? I'm dubious.

    To be clear, I'm 100% for removing our dependence on China in particular, because they fight dirty through currency manipulation and effective slave labor of their people. They may also incorporate backdoors into tech they build in anticipation of access or control in a future way they expect to enter against the U.S. But with other countries, like Taiwan, Japan, EU, etc., I think it's usually better (national security being the sole exception) to encourage U.S. companies to fight for their lives and die if they can't win on an open battlefield.

    If those other countries have tariffs or other challenges against the U.S. then reciprocal tariffs just as incentive for them to drop theirs are fine and reasonable, but protectionist policies likely just make us weaker.
    Reply
  • Jez Corden
    GraniteStateColin said:
    I'm torn on this. I'd like to see Intel and the U.S. more broadly do better with chips, both for the sake of the manufacturing jobs and also as a national security matter (safer to make them here), but generally these protective efforts make the companies weaker and less competitive. If Intel can't stand on its own, does this protection do anything beyond slowing its decline? I'm dubious.

    To be clear, I'm 100% for removing our dependence on China in particular, because they fight dirty through currency manipulation and effective slave labor of their people. They may also incorporate backdoors into tech they build in anticipation of access or control in a future way they expect to enter against the U.S. But with other countries, like Taiwan, Japan, EU, etc., I think it's usually better (national security being the sole exception) to encourage U.S. companies to fight for their lives and die if they can't win on an open battlefield.

    If those other countries have tariffs or other challenges against the U.S. then reciprocal tariffs just as incentive for them to drop theirs are fine and reasonable, but protectionist policies likely just make us weaker.
    I feel you, but I don't think it's necessarily about hurting Korea, Taiwan, etc, just diversifying the supply chain. God forbid, but if a small asteroid hit Taiwan and wiped it out tomorrow, it would upend the global economy. 90% of all adv. chips come from Taiwan, that feels like a huge risk in the tech-based economy we have nowadays.
    Reply
  • GraniteStateColin
    Jez Corden said:
    I feel you, but I don't think it's necessarily about hurting Korea, Taiwan, etc, just diversifying the supply chain. God forbid, but if a small asteroid hit Taiwan and wiped it out tomorrow, it would upend the global economy. 90% of all adv. chips come from Taiwan, that feels like a huge risk in the tech-based economy we have nowadays.

    Yeah, I'd put that in the general "national security" bucket and agree that's a good reason to incent production here. Frankly, with Taiwan, I think there is a very real risk, not so much from an asteroid (we're getting pretty good at tracking those and can redirect if needed :-) ) but from a China invasion. In the most extreme case, that could be worse than an asteroid: U.S. and Europe lose all access to TSMC production, China takes it over and uses the shift to escalate the war it believes it's already waging against the west.
    Reply