Rumors of a potential GPU licensing deal
between Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) may finally be over.
The rumored deal, which never really made sense from Intel’s perspective, was likely put to rest for good at the JPMorgan Tech
Conference this week when AMD CEO Lisa Su said, "We’re not looking at enabling a competitor to compete with our products."
The Rumor
The origin of the rumor came from the IT website Fudzilla, which claimed a deal had been
reached between AMD and Intel on May 16 after a previous licensing deal between Intel and NVIDIA Corporation
(NASDAQ: NVDA) expired in March.
"We can now confirm the rumors that Intel has given up on Nvidia because it has written a cheque to license AMD’s graphics,” the
Fudzilla story read.
However, even after AMD management made no mention of an Intel deal at the company’s analyst day on May 16, Fudzilla appeared to
stand by its story in a follow-up
report on May 18. Fudzilla said its sources for the original story were “well-placed industry insiders” and that “the Intel and
AMD deal will include Intel CPUs using Radeon graphics."
Related Link: Breaking
Down The Reasons An Advanced Micro Devices Deal With Intel Not Likely To Happen
The Street
Even before Su’s comments, analysts and experts were skeptical of the potential deal.
“In our view, the obligation to Nvidia is over and done, with no compelling need for Intel to license patents from either Nvidia
or AMD for legal protection,” Citi analyst Christopher Danely wrote this
week.
Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann agrees that a deal between AMD and Intel doesn’t make sense.
“The deal with Nvidia was basically a settlement on unrelated issues. This Intel/AMD licensing thing is fake news,” Mosesmann
said.
After initially spiking more than 8 percent on the Fudzilla report, AMD shares are now down 14.6 percent in the past five
trading sessions and 23 percent in the past three months.
The stock traded recently at $10.86.
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