Former Intel CEO and chairman Craig Barrett has warned that without urgent and massive funding, Intel could permanently lose its standing in the global semiconductor race, taking with it America’s hopes of producing state-of-the-art chips on home soil.
Writing in Fortune, Barrett argued that Intel remains the only U.S. company capable of matching Taiwan’s TSMC at the leading edge, but is starved of the capital needed to scale and modernize its fabs.
Barrett’s proposal is unconventional but blunt: Intel’s eight largest customers—including Apple, Google, and Nvidia—should each inject $5 billion in exchange for guaranteed domestic supply and pricing leverage against Asian rivals. He stressed that neither TSMC nor Samsung plans to bring their most advanced manufacturing processes to U.S. territory, leaving American tech giants dangerously dependent on imports.
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“The only place the cash can come from is the customers,” he wrote, warning that leadership in chipmaking demands heavy investment years before the demand curve catches up.
A Decade of Decline
Intel’s current plight has been more than a decade in the making. Once the undisputed leader in cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing, the company began slipping in the mid-2010s when delays in transitioning from its 14nm to 10nm process ceded the technological lead to TSMC. By 2020, Apple had abandoned Intel’s chips for its own ARM-based designs, while AMD surged ahead in CPU performance. Under then-CEO Bob Swan, Intel vowed a comeback but continued to miss manufacturing milestones.
In 2021, Pat Gelsinger took over with an ambitious “IDM 2.0” strategy, pledging to regain leadership by 2025 through aggressive fab expansion and a push into contract manufacturing. Billions were earmarked for new plants in Arizona, Ohio, and Europe, but cost overruns, yield issues, and the brutal economics of catching up to TSMC eroded confidence. The CHIPS and Science Act offered a $39 billion lifeline for the industry, but Barrett now warns the funding is too modest to close Intel’s gap with Asia.
The situation has not changed under Lip-Bu Tan, appointed CEO in March 2025, who inherited steep financial losses—$18.8 billion in 2024 alone—and yield problems with Intel’s 18A process node. These manufacturing setbacks delayed key products and forced an accelerated pivot to the still-unproven 14A node. Barrett has been scathing about the leadership’s caution, calling the reluctance to invest in 14A without pre-signed customer contracts “a joke” that risks leaving Intel permanently behind.
Tan’s tenure has also been marked by painful cost-cutting—tens of thousands of layoffs, cancelled projects, and restructuring plans that so far have failed to restore confidence. Intel’s foundry ambitions remain stalled, with global customers hesitant to commit orders to a roadmap still battling execution issues.
Barrett’s Two-Pillar Rescue Plan
Barrett’s blueprint rests on immediate investment in transformative technologies like High-NA EUV and backside power delivery, paired with possible U.S. tariffs on imported advanced chips to stimulate domestic demand. He dismissed suggestions to split Intel’s design and manufacturing arms, insisting the real problem is capital, not structure.
President Donald Trump has publicly called for Tan’s resignation over alleged ties to China and has met with him at the White House. While Barrett avoided commenting on the leadership feud, he framed his plan as essential for national security and the stability of the American tech supply chain.
“We cannot afford to let Intel’s manufacturing leadership slip away,” he warned.