Intel's struggling mobile chip business may soon get a boost from Apple, whose future mobile devices may use Intel's modems, Bloomberg reported Friday.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg said that future iPhones destined for use on the AT&T network and those of overseas carriers will use Intel chips. Other iPhone versions, including those for sale in China, will continue to use chips from rival Qualcomm.
The move makes sense for Apple as it seeks to diversify its supplier base amid a worldwide smartphone market that appears to be softening somewhat. It is also welcome news for Intel, which has several next-gen mobile chips in the pipeline but not as big a customer base as Qualcomm or Samsung.
Intel lost $4.21 billion on its mobile business in 2014, according to Forbes. The company announced in April that it would cut 12,000 jobs as it seeks to refocus its efforts on cloud computing. CEO Brian Krzanich said the company's data center and Internet of things businesses are now its primary "growth engines."
But Krzanich and other executives have also made it clear that Intel must rely on a connected ecosystem which includes all kinds of computing hardware if it is to stay competitive. In what Krzanich called the "virtuous cycle," PCs and other devices that make up the Internet of things will all beam their data to and from to the cloud. So will memory modules and field-programmable gate arrays, the chips that are used in medical imaging, computer vision, and speech-recognition devices.
Aicha Evans, who heads up the company's mobile chip division, said in February that Intel is working on modems that can manage sometimes "slower but smarter data transfers" for next-gen 5G networks. It's likely that those would be the type of chips it has offered for future iPhones.
Intel and Apple representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.