The CEO of Intel Bob Swan, during a round table with US journalists, took stock of the company’s performance. The top executive talked about how digitalization is pushing the semiconductor market bringing back the role of PCs, strengthening the server sector and opening new outlets, such as artificial intelligence, 5G and the industrial automation sector.

“Fortunately, in some ways, but for others unfortunately, we are not the only ones who have noticed this huge opportunity in front of us. The competition is strong and never sleeps. That means we have to be on top at what we do, which we have every intention of being, closing last year and entering this year. We are excited about the competitive landscape – sometimes I wish it wasn’t that intense, but I think it makes us stronger in the long term “.

One of the problems that plagued Intel in recent years is undoubtedly the fine-tuning of new generation production processes, such as the 10 nanometers. After years of delay, Intel seems to have found the square and Swan has confirmed the continuous progress on the front of 10 nanometers , both in terms of technology and volumes, with positive implications also for profit margins.

Nevertheless, as stated during the ‘Architecture Day 2020, Intel has acknowledged that there are players – notably TSMC, but also Samsung – with better manufacturing technology right now , and for this reason it will use it: for example, future Xe-HPG gaming GPUs will be made externally.

The CEO does not exclude any option at all : during the round table he did not say “no” to a licensing agreement that allows to produce chips in their own plants using the production process of others . “If there are ways or opportunities to leverage other advances in the industry, it will be important for Intel to capitalize on industry innovations. We are coming to the conclusion that we don’t have to deliver all the innovations we want suns . Then we could outsource, switch to use third party intellectual property, open our own production and become a foundry. Is there a scenario where we could use another’s manufacturing process in our production? It is certainly possible. The industry is evolving and we need to leverage this innovation, inside our walls or elsewhere, and take advantage of it “.

Obviously we are talking about hypotheses, but the opening to this eventuality is symptomatic: several years ago Intel would never have considered such a path – certainly not unprecedented if we think of the 14 nm of Globalfoundries, a production technology obtained in l icence from Samsung. That said, it is not an option that appears concretely on the table, in fact during the interview Swan underlines how outsourcing can represent a problem in terms of production capacity (any reference to the current shortage of AMD and Nvidia GPUs is purely coincidental) and that Intel has experienced a less severe shortage than its competitors.

Finally, Swan wanted to sweep some rumors about his figure. Not the rumors of recent weeks on the search for a new CEO, but the fact that arriving at the top position from the previous role of CFO, he had a greater focus on profits with respect to the technology side . When asked about this, Swan said that the technical side is more important to Intel’s success. “As you know they are not decoupled: the rate of innovation, the number of products, production and investments in technological development. One drives the other”.