Japanese soft bank group gets in with US chip manufacturers Intel

The Japanese Softbank Group gets in with the troubled US chip manufacturer Intel and thus further increases its presence in the United States. Softbank buy Intel shares worth two billion dollars (1.7 billion euros), the company announced on Tuesday. Softbank will have a share of around two percent in Intel. According to media reports, the US government is also considering supporting Intel – with around ten percent.

The US group lags the competition, especially when building chips for artificial intelligence (AI). Due to economic problems, Intel finally gave up plans for the construction of a chip factory in Magdeburg at the end of July. The semiconductor market is dominated by TSMC from Taiwan and Samsung from South Korea, technologically the US group Nvidia is currently at the top.

Softbank and Intel explained on Tuesday that the “strategic investment” of the Japanese group reflected their conviction that modern semiconductor production and care in the USA will expand and Intel will play a “decisive role”. The head of Softbank, Masayohsi Son, has announced several investment projects in the USA since the return of Donald Trump. This includes participation in the 500 billion dollar project Stargate, which is supposed to build huge data centers for AI in the USA. The US software company Oracle and the Chatgpt developer Openai are also involved in this.

At the beginning of August, US President Trump asked for the resignation of Intel boss Tan because of his alleged proximity to China-after a meeting a few days later with the top manager, there was no question. Instead, there were first reports on an entry of the state at Intel.