Intel on Tuesday argued that it deserves a place at the table with AI chipmakers Nvidia and AMD. The company announced plans to price its next Gaudi AI accelerator chips at a steep discount to its rivals. However, Intel stock fell.
Speaking at the Computex trade show in Taiwan, Intel Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger revealed pricing for the Intel Gaudi 2 and Gaudi 3 AI accelerators. He also launched the company's latest data center processor, Intel Xeon 6, and introduced a new AI PC processor code-named Lunar Lake.
A highlight of Gelsinger's presentation was the aggressive pricing strategy for Intel's upcoming Gaudi artificial intelligence accelerators.
Intel said a standard data center AI kit including eight Intel Gaudi 2 accelerators with a universal baseboard will be offered to system providers at $65,000, or about one-third the cost of comparable competitive platforms. A kit with eight Intel Gaudi 3 accelerators will list at $125,000, or about two-thirds the cost of comparable competitive platforms, Intel said.
"In other words, it crushes the competition," Gelsinger said.
Intel Stock Pulls Back
However, Intel compared its latest Gaudi chips to Nvidia's current-generation H100 graphics processing units. Nvidia is now selling a more advanced version of its Hopper GPU, the H200, as well as next-generation Blackwell series GPUs.
On the stock market today, Intel stock fell 0.9% to close at 30.03. Year to date, Intel stock is down 40%.
Meanwhile, Intel's latest server and PC processors are a bid to regain market share lost to AMD.
"Our latest Xeon, Gaudi and Core Ultra platforms, combined with the power of our hardware and software ecosystem, are delivering the flexible, secure, sustainable and cost-effective solutions our customers need to maximize the immense opportunities ahead," Gelsinger said.
Chip Stocks Retreat
Gelsinger's keynote at Computex 2024 followed presentations by the chief executives of AMD, Arm Holdings, Nvidia and Qualcomm.
On Tuesday, Nvidia stock notched an intraday record high of 1,166 before retreating. It ended the trading session up 1.3% to 1,164.37. Nvidia shares will undergo a 10-for-1 stock split on Friday.
Elsewhere, AMD stock dropped 2.2% to 159.99. Qualcomm stock sank 0.8% to 204.37. And Arm stock fell 1% to 125.86.
Intel stock ranks No. 15 out of 33 stocks in IBD's semiconductor manufacturing industry group, according to IBD Stock Checkup. Intel stock has a weak IBD Composite Rating of 38 out of 99.
AMD, Arm, Nvidia and Qualcomm are in IBD's fabless chipmaker industry group.
Follow Patrick Seitz on X, formerly Twitter, at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor stocks.
