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Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo listens as President Joe Biden participates virtually in a meeting on the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act at the White House on July 25, 2022.

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Intel has been badly beaten down of late, losing 60% of its value this year as it struggles to find its way in the booming artificial intelligence market while aggressively building out fabs in the U.S. The company is turning to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo for help.

In a recent meeting with Raimondo, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger voiced frustration over the heavy reliance that U.S. companies have on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world’s largest contract chipmaker.

Raimondo followed that up with meetings with a handful of public market investors to reinforce the importance of chip manufacturing in the U.S., given the growing geopolitical risk around Taiwan, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions were private. Raimondo’s goal was to urge shareholders in companies like Nvidia and Apple to recognize the economic benefits of having a U.S. foundry that can produce AI chips, the people said.

Intel is currently building out plants in four U.S. states as it seeks to become more of a foundry business, manufacturing chips for other suppliers. Earlier this year, Intel was awarded up to $8.5 billion in CHIPS Act funding from the Biden administration and could receive an additional $11 billion in loans from the legislation, which was passed in 2022.

None of the funds have been distributed yet. A senior government official told CNBC disbursements are expected by the end of the year.

It’s an increasingly important initiative for Intel, which is getting trounced in the market for microprocessors. In addition to losing share in its core PC and data center market to the likes of Advanced Micro Devices, Intel is hardly on the map in AI, where Nvidia is dominant.

Intel’s foundry effort has been stunted by delays, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. TSMC is also building a foundry in Arizona and has faced similar issues.

The U.S. Commerce Department declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for Intel.

Intel’s board is meeting this week to discuss the company’s restructuring plans, including potentially splitting up its design business from its foundry, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Intel CFO David Zinsner told investors at a conference last week that splitting up the businesses made sense.

“What I can predict is we are going to create more separation between these two businesses,” Zinsner said. “It’s important for customers to see that separation.”

In its earnings report last month, Intel reported profit and revenue that trailed analysts’ estimates and said it was cutting 15% of its workforce. After the report, the stock had its worst day in 50 years, falling to its lowest in over a decade.

Nvidia manufactures nearly all of its cutting-edge chips at TSMC, which is also a major manufacturer for AMD, Apple, Amazon,. Google and Broadcom. Concerns have been rising for years that China could invade Taiwan, creating a massive risk for the U.S. chip industry.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spoke at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia conference on Wednesday and was asked about the geopolitical risk tied to Taiwan and what he would do if something happened.

“In the event that we have to shift from one fab to another, we have the ability to do it,” Huang said, in conversation with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon. “We won’t be able to get the same level of performance or cost, but we will be able to provide the supply.”

WATCH: Intel near lowest level since 2010

Intel launches its newest AI chip

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Peter Thiel just bought a big stake in Tom Lee’s ether company and the shares are surging

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Peter Thiel just bought a big stake in Tom Lee's ether company and the shares are surging

Peter Thiel, president and founder of Clarium Capital Management LLC, holds hundred dollars bills as he speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Florida, U.S., on Thursday, April 7, 2022. 

Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images

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The current wave of interest in Ethereum and related assets follows an announcement by Robinhood that it will enable trading of tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs across Europe, and a groundswell of interest in stablecoins throughout June following Circle’s wildly successful IPO and ongoing progress in Congress on the Senate’s proposed stablecoin bill, the GENIUS Act.

The price of ether itself also continued its rally, up more than 4% Wednesday. The coin has doubled in price in the past three months.

Thiel is a venture capitalist and hedge fund manager best known as a cofounder of both PayPal and Palantir and an early investor in Facebook. Founders Fund was an investor in Tagomi, the crypto brokerage acquired by Coinbase in 2020, and Polymarket, the prediction market built on Ethereum.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sells another $37 million worth of stock

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sells another  million worth of stock

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang speaks during the NVIDIA GTC Paris keynote, part of the 9th edition of the VivaTech technology startup and innovation fair, held at the Dôme de Paris in the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 11, 2025.

Mustafa Yalcin | Anadolu | Getty Images

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sold another 225,000 shares of the chipmaker, totaling about $37 million, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The sale comes as part of a plan adopted in March for Huang to sell up to 6 million shares of the leading artificial intelligence company. Huang began trading stock last month. His most recent sale, disclosed last Friday, totaled 225,000 shares, or about $36 million.

Since he began selling stock this year, Huang has unloaded 1.2 million shares, totaling about $190 million, according to InsiderScore. In last year’s prearranged plan, Huang cashed in over $700 million.

AI demand and the need for graphics processing units powering large language models have spiked Huang’s net worth and propelled Nvidia past a $4 trillion market capitalization, making it the most valuable company.

That surge in value has put Huang above Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett in net worth on Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.

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In another significant win, Nvidia said this week that it plans to soon restart sales of its H20 chips to China after the Trump administration indicated that it would approve export licenses.

Earlier this year, the administration said Nvidia would need a license approval to ship the chips, designed specifically for China.

“The U.S. government has assured NVIDIA that licenses will be granted, and NVIDIA hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.

Huang said during a press conference on Wednesday in Beijing, China, that he wants to sell chips more advanced than the H20 to China at some point.

Huang wasn’t the only stakeholder to unload Nvidia shares. Board member Brooke Seawell sold $16 million worth of stock.

WATCH: H20 news should add 10% to Nvidia’s street estimates, says Deepwater’s Gene Munster

H20 news should add 10% to Nvidia’s street estimates, says Deepwater's Gene Munster

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang wants to sell more advanced chips to China after H20 ban is lifted

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang wants to sell more advanced chips to China after H20 ban is lifted

Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks to members of the media in Beijing, China, on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

Na Bian | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Nvidia is looking to ship more advanced chips to China than its current generation, CEO Jensen Huang said on Wednesday, as he looks to revitalize sales in the world’s second-largest economy.

The comments come after Nvidia said on Monday that it will resume sales of its H20 artificial intelligence chip to China, reversing a previous ban. The H20 is a less-advanced semiconductor designed for AI workloads that comply with U.S. export restrictions to China.

“I hope to get more advanced chips into China than the H20,” Huang said during a press conference in Beijing, China, in response to a CNBC question.

“And the reason for that is because technology is always moving on … today Hopper’s terrific but some years from now we will have more and more and better and better technology, and I think it’s sensible that whatever we’re allowed to sell in China will continue to get better and better over time as well,” he said referencing Hopper, Nvidia’s chip architecture that the H20 is built on.

Nvidia has been caught in the crosshairs of U.S.-China tensions over trade and technology. The tech giant has faced several rounds of restrictions that have forced it to restrict access of its most advanced chips to China. In response, Nvidia has developed semiconductors that comply with export restrictions, such as the H20.

Nvidia took a $4.5 billion writedown on the unsold H20 inventory in May and said sales in its last financial quarter would have been $2.5 billion higher without any export curbs.

Huang has trod a fine line between praising U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies regarding reshoring chip manufacturing to America while also lobbying for change on curbs to China.

If all the AI developers are in China, the China stack is going to win, Nvidia CEO tells CNBC

The Nvidia boss has argued the Chinese AI market could be worth $50 billion in the next two-to-three years and that it would be a “tremendous loss” for American firms not to be part of that. Huang also told CNBC this year that Nvidia’s Chinese rival Huawei has “got China covered” if U.S. firms can’t participate in the market.

“Export control are things that are outside of our control and they can be quite disruptive to our business. It is our job only to inform the governments of the nature and the unintended consequences of the policies that they make,” Huang said during his visit to Beijing.

Nvidia has also laid out a roadmap to release more advanced chips, though it remains unclear if the U.S. government would allow Nvidia to sell more advanced products to Chinese companies. However, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested on Tuesday that the government would continue to allow chip sales to China so that companies in the market rely on American technology.

“The idea is the Chinese are more than capable of building their own,” Lutnick told CNBC. “You want to keep one step ahead of what they can build, so they keep buying our chips.”

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