Literally illegal. Only AMD and Intel have the patent cross-licensing rights to make x86 chips. There used to be a third company (Cyrix and subsequently VIA), and (maybe?) still is, but it hasn't been relevant to the desktop CPU market in decades.

The real competition will come from ARM-based computers.

Heck of an industry to break into.

Competitor is already here. Apple and Ampere are making ARM systems that fit most users needs. There are ARM servers. But people don’t want to switch.

Would TSMC be considered a competitor to AMD?

yup, a third party named RISC-V

The architecture is in its swan song anyways. Let AMD ride it into the sunset and bid it good riddance.

Modern times aren't like the past.

Don't get me wrong, the market will probably be worse if Intel were to go bust (certainly in the short term), but it wouldn't be anywhere near as devastating as it would've been 10, 15, 20 years ago.

x86 isn't the only viable architecture in town anymore.

Apple and others have proven that ARM is certainly viable for PCs.

Yes, Qualcomm's X Elite was a complete dud, but that's more on their/MS's absolute shit show of driver/firmware/graphics API development, not on the hardware. Nvidia's ARM stuff is already more mature.

Now imagine if Intel disappeared. AMD simply would not be able to meet the demand required, it'd tigger an arms race (ARMs race??) of companies pushing ARM and RISC-V development. Nvidia has not kept it secret that they want to get more into CPUs.

Shit, as unlikely as it initially seems, there's so much money on the table that Apple could even consider selling SoCs (although even if they did, I imagine they'd retain the best for themselves, or charge a huge premium).

I don't think people should be as worried about a lack of competition as they were when AMD was facing bankruptcy. The market is different now, and it's in a state of fairly quick evolution.

15 years? absolutely not. Before Ryzen in 2017 almost no one was buying AMD.

edit:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amds-desktop-pc-market-share-hits-a-new-high-as-server-gains-slow-down-intel-now-only-outsells-amd-2-1-down-from-9-1-a-few-years-ago

AMD is at 32.2% unit share of Desktop/Laptop PCs in Q2 2025. Lots of people still buying Intel.

I got a new work laptop recently. First one I've ever had that didn't have an Intel cpu. Company is a decent sized multinational.

I think it's already turning. But at the same time I don't think the US can afford to let Intel fail entirely.

Their new GPU has a pretty solid price/performance.

CPU is shit though

Defense contracting.

They do a a good amount of of military industrial contracting and work for 3 letter agencies on data processing/ high performance computing.

They also got awarded government funding in 2024 to build logic chips for the military in-country.

Not enough to sustain the company, but such "sensitive" programs may not be allowed to show up in revenue reports or have to be assigned to other areas or so.

A lot of people I work with still buy Intel based on brand recognition alone. Most are tech savvy people too.

Can confirm my work laptop has an Intel chip