Intel Corporation(INTC.US) CEO Lip-Bu Tan aims for 10x returns within 5-10 years by focusing on advanced packaging, glass substrates, and new materials such as synthetic diamonds. He highlighted AI-driven growth in CPU demand and emphasized trust and yield in its chip foundry business. Collaborating with Elon Musk on the Terafab project, Chen believes Intel Corporation(INTC.US)’s true potential will emerge post-2030, extending beyond PCs into AI and edge computing markets.
Apple is considering manufacturing some of its M-series processors on Intel’s 18A-P node, while Google might tap the chip-maker EMIB (Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge) advanced packaging for TPU v8e. Notably, Intel’s flagship Panther Lake mobile processor and the Clearwater Forest server CPU are both built on its 18A process, while Tesla has tapped Intel’s 14A node to manufacture chips for its Terafab data center complex in Austin.
The semiconductor giant also announced it has commenced manufacturing using its 18A-P chip process technology. Should this prove successful, the advanced node could potentially secure foundry business from Apple. Additionally, Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative has been identified as an Intel foundry customer.
Terafab Project: Four Words, Seven Days, and What Musk Might Actually Be Building On Saturday, March 14th, Elon Musk posted five words to X: “Terafab Project launches in 7 days.” No thread. No context. No explainer post.
Here’s the takeaway many folks miss: SpaceX is becoming a vertically integrated space infrastructure platform—rockets + satellite broadband + AI compute + its own chip supply chain. And the Terafab and orbital AI data center efforts tie the ecosystem together into one unified bet on the future of AI infrastructure.
Terafab's goal is for its annual production capacity to eventually teach 1 terawatt (1,000 GW) of AI compute capacity -- although the project is still in the early stages, it is expensive, and it faces no shortage of supply chain challenges. CEO Elon Musk has asserted that the ability to scale up an orbital constellation of AI data centers is mostly limited by a lack of AI computing hardware.
In Indian terms, that is roughly ... ... Terafab is designed to be a fully self-contained chip factory handling chip design, fabrication, memory, and packaging all under one roof....
Export controls have blocked China from EUV technology and forced it toward architectural and systems-level workarounds rather than parity with TSMC or ASML-enabled manufacturing. Terafab would add another potential mega-customer for ASML at a moment when its 2026 revenue guidance already stands at €36–40bn ($41bn–47bn), driven by rising AI-related demand from existing clients.
He confirmed that NVIDIA now holds ... collaboration with Elon Musk's Terafab project. Tan also predicted Intel will reach competitive parity with TSMC by 2030-2032 and said ......
Trump says the deal is part of his administration’s push to reshore semiconductor manufacturing, writing that the U.S. needs to build its chips domestically and that he "decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our Chips right here in America.” He credited earlier government intervention for drawing Nvidia and Elon Musk's TeraFab project to Intel's foundry. Apple already designs its own silicon and has done so since it dropped Intel processors from its products in
In March, Elon Musk gave a presentation on a collaborative effort between Tesla, xAI, and SpaceX (Intel joined in April) to build the world's largest chip plant called Terafab. In the presentation, Musk discussed why Tesla, xAI, and SpaceX are ...
Both parties are also advancing the Terafab chip factory project, which is reportedly valued at $55 billion and aims to provide chip production capacity for SpaceX’s orbital data centers, as well as Tesla’s Robotaxi and robotics businesses.
“As long as supply capacity is not a bottleneck, new projects represent opportunities. Therefore, we must ensure this issue is properly addressed. Terafab is a prime example of a large-scale wafer fab project.”
Now moving forward, Intel's current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has made it his goal to turn Intel Foundry into a state-of-the-art facility for producing chips in America. This is why Elon Musk found confidence in 14A and Intel's technologies for his TeraFab, and others are lining up, too.
At COMPUTEX 2026 in early June, Intel officially announced that its next-generation Xeon processor, "Diamond Rapids," will be manufactured on this 18A-P process. The move is intended to serve as a proof point of reliability for potential customers by adopting the node for its own flagship products. Intel Foundry's customer acquisition efforts are also intensifying. According to previous reports, TeraFab, SpaceX, and Apple are among the listed customers.
Additionally, Musk’s two companies are already deeply intertwined through shared semiconductor fabrication at their joint TERAFAB facility in Austin, cross-company supply chain transactions, and Tesla’s $2 billion investment in xAI prior to the SpaceX-xAI merger.