The White House on Tuesday confirmed that the Trump administration is working on a deal that could see the US government taking a 10% stake in Chip veteran Intel.
“The President wants to first keep the US needs from national security and economic point of view,” the White House press secretary Karolin Lewit told reporters.
According to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, the potential deal may have an exchange of government grants for Intel shares.
This step can help Intel as it struggles to compete with rivals such as Nvidia, Samsung and TSMC, especially in the rapidly growing Artificial Intelligence (AI) chip market. Intel has been contacted by BBC for comment.
The US wants a stake in exchange for the approved grant during the Biden administration, Lutnik said on CNBC on Tuesday.
“We should get an equity stake for our money,” he said. “We will get equity in return … instead of giving grants only.”
Potential deal, which was first reported last week, aims to help Intel to create a flagship manufacturing hub at the US State of Ohio. At that time, a spokesman for the White House told the BBC that the report should be “considered as speculation” until officially announced.
Last week, Intel did not directly comment about the reports, but said it was in depth to support the efforts of President Trump to strengthen manufacturing and technology in the US “.
On Monday, Japanese investment giant SoftBank stated that it would buy $ 2BN (£ 1.5BN) stake in Intel.
After the announcement, Intel’s shares rose nearly 7% in New York on Tuesday.
