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Apple-Intel Foundry Deal, Memory Shock & Export Crackdowns
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Apple and Intel are reportedly partnering on US chip production — but with no formal confirmation, the market is pricing a political statement, not a contract. Plus: iPhone memory costs surge 272%, AMD acquires MEXT, and export control loopholes close in.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Intel's stock jumped twelve percent in a single session after Trump announced that Apple had agreed to design and build chips with Intel in the United States. That's the lead today, and it sets the frame for almost everything else we're tracking.
The key question isn't whether Apple wants a Taiwan hedge. It almost certainly does.
The memory shortage story got harder to ignore this week. Apple CEO Tim Cook disclosed that DRAM costs for iPhone eighteen Pro will rise two hundred seventy-two percent compared to iPhone seventeen Pro.
AMD acquired MEXT this week, an AI memory optimization company focused on data center bottlenecks. The strategic read here is straightforward.
On the policy side, six companies signed a letter backing the Chip Security Act, which would mandate location-verification for advanced chip shipments. Separately, Senators Banks and Kim urged the Bureau of Industry and Security to close a shell company loophole that allows Chinese entities to order custom chips through TSMC.
The through-line across all of this is supply chain control. Who manufactures where, who can buy what, and who pays when capacity gets redirected.
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