According to Reuters, TSMC and Intel are reportedly still working on a potential joint venture to run Intel's manufacturing capacity. The joint venture would involve leading American fabless chip designers such as AMD, Broadcom, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. This initiative is in response to a request from President Trump's administration to strengthen Intel and ensure continued American control.

Under the proposed scheme, Intel will have to spin off its Intel Foundry (IF) division, which produces chips for Intel and third-party customers, and then TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, buys less than 50% of IF, leaving the rest to partners. TSMC has initiated discussions with AMD, Broadcom, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, but the talks remain preliminary and sensitive.

There are significant technical, operational, and business complexities for the potential joint venture. TSMC is unlikely to be interested in owning a 50% stake in a JV that uses its own process technologies and competes against the Taiwan foundry. The transfer of TSMC's production nodes to Intel's advanced fabs with EUV tools is difficult, if possible at all, due to the vastly different manufacturing processes employed by the two companies.

The news had immediate market implications, with Intel's stock price rising more than 7% in pre-market U.S. trading following reports of this potential partnership. However, it is unclear whether the aforementioned fabless semiconductor developers are interested in getting into manufacturing.