Shortly after taking the reins at Intel in 2005, CEO Paul Otellini proposed to the board the purchase of NVIDIAas they say in The New York Times with reference to sources familiar with the issue. The rejection of advice that we see today with hindsight was another one of them historical errors in the history of technology.

Intel is going through one of the worst times in its history on a business level and is preparing to cut staff (which would include thousands of layoffs) and divestment in response to its stock market crash and decline in revenue and profits. Such is the situation where Qualcomm “dared” to propose a takeover bid that would have been unthinkable until recently.

Intel could have bought NVIDIA and not doing so was a historic mistake

Speaking of purchases, the NYT tells us a unique story that could put Intel in another dimension. According to information, in 2005 the executive presented the company’s board of directors purchase of NVIDIA for $20 billion. A very demanding investment for its time, but Otellini clearly saw the potential of GPUs and not just for gaming.

Intel’s too-comfortable-in-the-chair approach to x86 architecture and board durability at a time when Intel was a big chip giant played against an operation that – as we know – didn’t happen. This is according to anonymous sources cited in the NYT report Intel lost “golden opportunity” while it was still the dominant chip maker in Silicon Valley.

Some board members recognized the future potential of GPUs in the enterprise and data center markets, but the board ultimately rejected the deal. One of the participants in the confidential meeting described it as “fatal moment” in the history of Intel (and chip technology).

And Intel has had a poor track record in mergers and acquisitions. At that time he was making big profits and as a big ‘elephant’ it was difficult to move him towards any acquisition. The CEO’s proposed $20 billion deal would be the most expensive acquisition ever attempted by a company that critics have called “the largest single-celled organism on the planet” for his highly insular corporate culture and limited access to technology that did not include x86 chips.

A huge mistake in the vision of the future, always considering what happened afterwards. Let’s say that last Friday, at certain moments of the quote, NVIDIA managed to surpass Apple and Microsoft in market capitalization to become the most valuable company on the planet.

And most importantly for what is said in this post: NVIDIA is worth 30 times Intel. Although there is some debate about the true return on investment in AI, GPUs have become the cornerstone of AI hardware, and the green giant is sweeping these types of accelerators for servers and data centers.