Intel jumped 13% on a Bloomberg report that Apple is talking to its old chip supplier again

Intel stock jumped 13% on May 5, 2026, hitting a record close of $108.18 and a $543.71 billion market cap. The catalyst was a Bloomberg report saying Apple is in early-stage talks with Intel and Samsung Foundry to build the base M-series chips in the US, starting around 2027.

This is a rumor with a stock-price footprint, not a deal. Apple hasn’t commented. Bloomberg’s own reporters flag reliability concerns and say the talks “may not ultimately move forward with another partner.” But the price action is itself the story: a single Bloomberg paragraph added more than $60 billion to Intel’s market cap inside a trading day, which tells you what the market thinks the manufacturing story is worth even at rumor strength.

What we know

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported the talks. Apple is “exploring early-stage talks with Intel and evaluating facilities from Samsung Electronics” alongside its existing TSMC relationship. The framing is supplier diversification, not replacement.

• The chips on the table. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, cited by 9to5Mac, points at base M-series chips for Macs and iPads as soon as 2027 and non-Pro iPhone chips potentially in 2028. The Pro tier stays on TSMC under all scenarios discussed.
• The process node. Intel 18AP, the second-generation 18A successor. Apple expects Intel to deliver PDK 1.0/1.1 in the first quarter of 2026, with production targeting Q2 to Q3 2027.
• Volume. Roughly 15 million to 20 million units a year for the standard M-series chips that go into MacBook Air and iPad Pro, per analyst projections that Macworld surfaced.
• Stock action. Intel hit an intraday record of $110.48 before closing at $108.18. The stock is up 174% in 2026 and 433% from a year ago. Market cap closed at a record $543.71 billion.
• The status. Bloomberg’s wording is that the conversations are “very early-phase, without any firm orders on the table.”

The corporate context matters. The US government took roughly a 10% stake in Intel in August 2025. Pat Gelsinger left as CEO in December 2024. Intel’s foundry pivot, which started taking customer pitches under the new leadership in mid-2025, has been in market-skeptic mode for months. An Apple manufacturing slot, even for the lowest-end M chip, would be the customer signal Intel Foundry has been chasing.

What we don’t know

Whether Apple actually signs. Bloomberg reports “reliability concerns” without specifying which side raised them. Intel’s 18A debut, the predecessor node, has had a public yield-versus-target conversation for over a year, and Apple’s reputation for hard yield demands on bleeding-edge nodes is well documented. The reliability bar on 18AP is the load-bearing question for whether 2027 production happens at all.

Apple hasn’t said whether the talks are mutually exclusive with the TSMC Arizona ramp, which is already producing some Apple silicon stateside. Both can be true. The Bloomberg report frames Intel and Samsung as “secondary options” beyond TSMC, not replacements.

Pricing isn’t disclosed. Foundry economics for Apple are notoriously opaque, and Intel’s foundry pricing on 18AP hasn’t been benchmarked against what TSMC charges Apple for comparable nodes.

Source attribution

The primary report is Bloomberg’s piece by Mark Gurman and team. Per Bloomberg, Apple was “exploring early-stage talks with Intel and evaluating facilities from Samsung Electronics” to diversify chip production beyond TSMC. 9to5Mac carried the stock-action numbers and the Ming-Chi Kuo timeline. Macworld added the volume projections from Jeff Pu.

What this means for you

If you hold Intel shares, the gain is priced. The asymmetric risk now is that the talks fail to convert. A single Bloomberg follow-up reporting a stall would unwind a meaningful slice of today’s move. Position size for headline risk, not deal momentum.

If you buy Macs and iPads, this story doesn’t change anything you’ll see in the next 18 months. The 2026 lineup is on TSMC. The earliest Intel-fabbed Apple silicon would land in a 2027 product cycle, which is a base MacBook Air or iPad Pro at the earliest. Pro and Max chips stay on TSMC under every scenario currently floated.

If you build for the Apple Silicon platform, the architectural ISA and the Apple-designed cores aren’t changing. A second foundry is a manufacturing decision, not a CPU-design decision. App compatibility, instruction sets, and core counts stay where Apple wants them, regardless of who etches the wafer. The only practical effect for developers is potential variance in clock-for-clock performance between SKUs from different foundries, which Apple historically masks behind binning and product positioning.