Intel's Chen Liwu awards a doctoral cap to Jensen Huang, simultaneously revealing: Working with NVIDIA on an "exciting new product"

Intel and NVIDIA’s strategic partnership is accelerating into implementation. At a symbolic ceremony, the leaders of the two chip giants appeared together on stage, signaling the latest signs of deepening cooperation to the public.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan personally placed a doctoral cap on NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during Carnegie Mellon University’s 2026 graduation ceremony on May 10. Tan publicly stated at the event that both companies are jointly developing “exciting new products” and highly praised Huang’s contributions to accelerated computing and artificial intelligence.

This statement further confirms the substantial warming of the relationship between the two companies. NVIDIA had previously announced a $5 billion investment in Intel, covering data center and consumer platform collaborations, involving custom processors, advanced packaging, and foundry manufacturing across several core areas.

Custom Xeon and Consumer SoC: Product Collaboration Roadmap Emerges

According to earlier reports, Intel and NVIDIA have a relatively clear product-level cooperation roadmap. In the data center sector, both plan to jointly develop a customized Xeon processor integrated with NVIDIA’s NVLink interconnect technology to meet the high-speed inter-chip communication needs of large-scale AI infrastructure.

In the consumer market, both plan to integrate NVIDIA’s RTX graphics IP into Intel’s next-generation system-on-chip (SoC). The first product using this scheme is codenamed “Serpent Lake,” expected to debut as early as 2028 to 2029. If this plan materializes, it will have a profound impact on the current PC graphics market landscape.

Foundry Business: Intel’s Hidden Opportunity

Beyond product cooperation, Intel’s foundry business (Intel Foundry) may hold greater strategic value. NVIDIA has long relied on TSMC to produce its core data center chips, but TSMC’s capacity for CoWoS advanced packaging has been under continuous pressure, making it difficult to fully meet NVIDIA’s increasing wafer order demands.

In this context, Intel’s foundry business is becoming an important option for NVIDIA to diversify its capacity. Recently, Intel secured orders from TeraFab and Apple, which are seen by the market as key milestones in rebuilding external customer confidence in its foundry services, laying the foundation for attracting major clients like NVIDIA.

Current market rumors suggest that NVIDIA’s next-generation GPU, codenamed “Feynman,” may adopt Intel’s EMIB advanced packaging solution. Additionally, there are reports that Intel’s 18A or 14A process nodes might be used to produce some NVIDIA GPUs, potentially covering entry- to mid-range consumer products aimed at the gaming market.

Two Giants Align, Market Awaits Official Announcement

The appearance of Tan and Huang together at the ceremony is not only a public display of personal camaraderie but is also interpreted as an official endorsement of accelerated strategic collaboration between the two companies. With NVIDIA’s $5 billion investment finalized and the product cooperation roadmap gradually clarified, market expectations for an official joint announcement are rising.

Currently, neither company has officially confirmed specific product details. But from cooperation on foundry capacity to chip IP integration, the scope of Intel and NVIDIA’s collaboration continues to expand. As Tan said, “This journey has just begun,” and the world will soon witness the tangible results of these tech giants’ partnership.

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