SullivanRrr
11-11 00:15

$Intel(INTC)$  Intel's ASIC business is another growth opportunity that seems underrated by the analyst consensus. Everyone keeps focusing on CPUs and GPUs, but Intel has been quietly building out its custom silicon work, designing purpose-built chips for customers with specific computing, networking, and AI workloads.

The purpose-built silicon revenue growth is accelerating. On the Q3 2026 earnings call, management said revenue was up more than 50% quarter over quarter and more than 2x year over year. CEO Lip-Bu Tan has also said the business tripled over the past three years, with the ambition to triple again over the coming years. That matters because custom ASIC programs can turn into recurring revenue once customer-specific chips move from design into volume production.

On the market size, Lip-Bu Tan has described the potential addressable market as potentially over $100 billion TAM. Management has also talked about an approximate $2B annualized revenue run rate, with a future $4B run-rate ambition.

As for existing customers, Fortinet is a named custom-silicon collaboration. Intel is working with Fortinet on its next-generation Security Processor 6, designed for FortiGate security appliances. Intel has also discussed purpose-built silicon and networking opportunities with hyperscale customers, though not all customer identities have been disclosed.

The interesting part is that custom chips are designed around individual customers' workloads rather than being generic processors. Future customer targets could include AWS, Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and networking or cybersecurity companies developing their own specialized processors. To be clear, these are potential customers, not confirmed Intel ASIC contracts.

The broader case is that hyperscalers and AI companies increasingly want chips optimized for their own workloads. Custom ASICs can offer better power efficiency for specific workloads, lower operating costs at scale, more control over chip architecture, less dependence on general-purpose accelerators, and more differentiated hardware for cloud and AI services.

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