Trump Announces Blockbuster Apple-Intel Chip Deal as ‘RAMmageddon’ Hits Tech Industry

President Donald Trump announced early Thursday that Apple Inc. has agreed to partner with Intel Corp. to design and manufacture its semiconductor chips domestically – a potentially big win for the White House’s aggressive campaign to reshore critical technology manufacturing to the U.S. through targeted tariffs and state-backed investments.

Writing on Truth Social, Trump criticized past administrations for allowing overseas competitors, particularly Taiwan, to dominate the semiconductor sector.

“We design everything, but we need to BUILD it here, NOW!” Trump posted, asserting that his second-term economic policies made the resurgence of the domestic chip industry an urgent national priority.

The partnership represents a notable strategic shift for Apple, which has historically relied almost exclusively on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to produce its advanced silicon. The deal also builds upon Apple’s broader initiative, announced last year, to inject an additional $600 billion into expanding its domestic manufacturing footprint.

“If this deal is confirmed, this solidifies Intel as a valid second source of silicon. It also marks the first real step of rebuilding the U.S. silicon business, alleviating (but not eliminating) the China risk to TSMC,” tech analyst Jack Poller said. “It also gives Apple price leverage as TSMC will face competition from Intel. I wouldn’t be surprised to see AMD, NVIDIA, and Google join Apple in using Intel’s fab to ensure availability given that TSMC 2nm and 3nm are sold out through at least 2027.”

Intel has rapidly emerged as a central pillar of the administration’s industrial strategy. In August of last year, the U.S. government acquired a roughly 10% stake in the Silicon Valley chipmaker via an $8.9 billion investment intended to secure American technological leadership.

Since that agreement was finalized, Intel’s market value has soared past $600 billion, with its stock price surging more than 400%. Following Trump’s early Thursday announcement, Intel shares jumped as much as 11.5% in early trading, reaching $135 per share shortly after the opening bell.

In his social media remarks, Trump also took credit for orchestrating other high-profile tech collaborations with Intel. He highlighted NVIDIA Corp.’s recent investment to manufacture its first-level chips with the company, as well as a partnership leveraging Intel’s technology team for Elon Musk’s TerraFab AI chip complex, a project linked with SpaceX and Tesla Inc.

The blockbuster manufacturing announcement arrived just hours after the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook, who warned that consumers face imminent price hikes.

Cook indicated that severe shortages in memory and storage components — driven by skyrocketing demand from artificial intelligence (AI) firms — have made “price increases unavoidable.” The industry-wide components crisis has been widely dubbed “RAMmageddon” by tech analysts.

While Cook did not specify which devices would be affected, the timeline for the changes, or the scale of the increases, he stated that the financial pressure has become too immense to absorb.

“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” Cook told the publication. “We’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”

The supply crunch is being driven by tech giants like Google, Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., and Amazon.com Inc., who are aggressively spending on AI infrastructure. The boom has monopolized the supply of high-bandwidth memory, leaving fewer components for consumer electronics and driving up manufacturing costs.

“There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” Cook noted, adding that memory pricing must return to reasonable levels for consumer products.

Cook, a seasoned supply chain expert who is stepping down as CEO in September, described the current market volatility over the past six months as unprecedented, calling the pricing environment a “hundred-year flood” unlike anything he has witnessed in his four decades in the electronics industry.

The announcement signals a shift for Apple, which has historically leveraged its massive scale to lock in favorable component pricing and insulate consumers from sudden market spikes.

Neither Intel nor Apple immediately responded to requests for comment regarding the newly announced manufacturing partnership. However, Wall Street’s initial reaction underscored growing investor confidence in Intel’s expanding role as the primary hub for America’s revitalized semiconductor supply chain.

“While (Apple) is well-equipped to invest in memory supply to support AI features within its devices through DRAM and NAND, we believe the company is in a strong position to increase prices without sacrificing hardware performance and risking increasing customer churn given the company’s increasing focus on the higher-end consumer,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors Thursday.