Intel CEO extends his desire to make Apple silicon chips and praises “ competitive fun ” with Apple

In an interview with Yahoo Finance Today, Intel’s newly appointed CEO Pat Gelsinger said the ongoing competition between his company and Apple is “fun,” while also hoping to make amends with Cupertino-based technology giant.

Over the next two years, Apple will transition its Mac lineup from Intel processors to its own Apple silicon chips. Apple is already on track with the transition, having released three Mac computers based on its M1 SoC. In response, Intel launched a marketing campaign last week to label Macs and ‌M1‌ as inferior to Intel processors.

Despite the barrage of attacks, Gelsinger has indicated that he hopes to have Apple as a future customer. In his interview with Yahoo FinanceGelsinger said that Apple relies too heavily on its current supplier, TSMC, for Apple silicon production and that Intel wants to offer its own services instead.

Apple is a customer and I hope to make it a big customer of the foundry as they are totally dependent on Taiwan Semiconductor these days. We want to give them great options to leverage our foundry services as well, just as we partnered with Qualcomm and Microsoft to leverage our foundry. We’re going to deliver great technology, some things that can’t be done anywhere else in the world.

Gelsinger attributed the recent tense competition with Apple to the fact that there is still room for innovation in the industry and the bonus that demand for PCs is the highest in more than a decade. Gelsinger went on to say that “competition fun is going on with Apple and the Mac ecosystem.”

So you have clearly seen some competing energies [in chipmaking] as there is still a lot of great innovation to be done, and we haven’t seen a demand for PCs at this level for a decade and a half. The world needs more of that, and there is competitive fun going on with Apple and the Mac ecosystem.

As part of its anti-Apple silicon marketing campaign, Intel recently hired former “I’m a Mac” actor Justin Long to star in a series of ads comparing “M1” Macs to laptops powered by Intel processors. Additionally, Intel has turned to Twitter for the campaign and created its own website to compare ‌M1‌ Macs to PCs.