Intel drops as Apple moves to its own silicon on all computers

Intel shares fell Monday as Apple said an upcoming Mac Pro computer will include a new homemade chip, representing the completion of the company’s effort to bring its own processors to its entire PC lineup.

The M2 Ultra, which will power the new computer, is up to three times faster than the speediest Intel-based Mac Pro. At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, Jennifer Munn, director of engineering program management, called the M2 Ultra “a monster of a chip.”

Apple launched its initial computer chip, the M1, in 2020.

Apple silicon is “a different kind of competition,” former Intel executive Gregory Bryant said at a 2021 Evercore conference. “It really wasn’t as much of the silicon as it was about the developer ecosystem and unifying this base of developers and applications that they have on the iPhone and the iPad and bring it to the Mac. So I think that was inevitable.”

The Mac Pro containing the new chip will come with 192 GB of memory, Apple said. The computer will start at $6,999.

In addition to Apple, Intel is facing heightened competition from AMD, which has been gaining market share in PC and data center chips, and Nvidia, whose processors are becoming more popular for running artificial-intelligence models.

Apple had about 9% market share of global PC shipments in the first quarter, technology industry researcher Gartner said in April. But the PC industry has been shrinking, with total shipments falling 30% year over year. Apple’s Mac revenue in the latest quarter fell 31% to $7.17 billion.

Intel shares fell 4.6% to close at $29.86.

WATCH: Apple introduces M2 Max, Pro and Ultra chips