It’s been a tumultuous year for the U.S. semiconductor industry.
The semiconductor industry plays a sizable role in the “AI race” that the U.S. seems determined to win, which is why this context is worth paying attention to: from Intel’s appointment of Lip-Bu Tan to CEO — who wasted no time getting to work trying to revitalize the legacy company — to Joe Biden proposing sweeping new AI chip export rules on his way out of office that never came to fruition.
Here’s a look at what’s happened so far in 2025.
August 27:The turmoil in the semiconductor market this year has clearly not hurt Nvidia. On August 27, the company reported that it hadrecord sales in the second quarter. The highlights were the growth of its data center business, which saw its revenue grow 56% year over year.
August 22:The U.S. governmentannounced it was converting existing government grants into a 10% stake in Intel. The deal wasstructured to penalize Intelif the company’s ownership in its foundry program dropped below 50%.
August 18:Japanese conglomerate SoftBank announced it was taking a$2 billion stake in Intel. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son called the deal “strategic.” The transaction was announced as rumors were swirling that the U.S. was going to take a stake in the company.
August 12:Nvidia and AMD announced that they struck a deal with the U.S. government to gain the necessary license to sell their AI chips in China. Both companies agreed topay the U.S. government 15% of revenuefrom their chip sales in China.
August 11:Intel CEO Lip-BuTan went to the White Houseto meet with President Donald Trump. The pair talked about Tan’s past and how Intel can help the U.S. with its goal of bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S. Both called the conversation productive.
August 7:President Donald Trump demanded thatIntel CEO Lip-Bu Tan “resign immediately”due to “conflicts of interest” in a Truth Social post. While Trump didn’t clarify what the conflicts of interest were, this came the day after Republican Senator Tom Cottonsent a letter to Intel’s board of directorsinquiring about Tan’s ties to China.
August 5:President Donald Trump told CNBC’s Squawk Box that he was planning toannounce tariffs on the semiconductor industryas soon as the following week. At the time, he didn’t mention specifics on what these tariffs could look like. As of September 5, no tariffs have been announced for this industry.
July 25:Just one day after its second-quarter earnings call, Intel confirmed that it wasspinning out its Network and Edge group, which is responsible for making chips for the telecom industry. The business unit produced $5.8 billion in revenue for the semiconductor company in 2024.
July 24:Intel announced that it waspulling back on some of its manufacturing operations. The company will no longer pursue its previously announced projects in Germany and Poland and is consolidating its test operations. Intel also announced it plans to end this year with around 75,000 employees.
July 23:The Trump administration unveiled its much-anticipatedAI Action Planalongside multiple related executive orders. While the plan includes a lot regarding the need for U.S. chip export controls and for the U.S. to coordinate with its allies on this effort, it doesn’t provide any concrete information on what these restrictions would look like.
July 17:The Trump administration helped foster a groundbreaking deal in May that resulted in a commitment from the United Arab Emirates to buy billions of dollars’ worth of AI chips from Nvidia. But nowthat deal is reportedly on holdas the U.S. works through national security concerns and fears that those chips could be smuggled from the Middle East to China.
July 16:A day after semiconductor firms like Nvidia and AMD got the green light to resume selling certain AI chips to China, we found out why. U.S. Commerce Security Howard Lutnick said the plans to allow U.S. companies to start selling AI chips in China aretied to ongoing trade discussionsbetween the U.S. and China regarding rare earth elements.
July 14:Nvidia said it was filing an application torestart sales of H20 AI chipsin China,confirming rumors from a few weeks prior. The company also announced that it would be selling a new chip, the RTX Pro, which was designed specifically for the Chinese market.
July 14:Malaysia announced that it was launchingtrade permits for U.S.-made AI chips. Under this new restriction, any individual or business would need to give the Malaysian government 30 days’ notice before exporting any U.S. AI chips.
June 18:Intel announcedfour new leadership appointmentsthat Intel says will help it move toward its goal of becoming an engineering-first company again. Intel announced a new chief revenue officer in addition to multiple high-profile engineering hires.
June 17:Intel will begin tolay off a significant chunk of its Intel Foundry staffin July. The company plans to eliminate at least 15%, and up to 20%, of workers in that business unit. These layoffs aren’t a shock: It was rumored back in April, and Intel’s CEO Lip-Bu Tan has said he wants to flatten the organization.
June 13:Nvidia isn’t counting on the U.S. backing off from its AI chip export restrictions anytime soon. After the company took a financial hit from the newly imposed licensing requirements on its H20 AI chips, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company willno longer include the Chinese marketin future revenue and profit forecasts.
June 6:AMD makes another acquisition — this time focused on talent. The companyacqui-hired the team behind Untether AI, which develops AI inference chips, as the semiconductor giant continues to round out its AI offerings.
AMD is coming for Nvidia’s AI hardware dominance
June 4:AMD continued its shopping spree. The companyacquired AI software optimization startup Brium, which helps companies retrofit AI software to work with different AI hardware. With a lot of AI software being designed with Nvidia hardware in mind, this acquisition isn’t surprising.
Nvidia lays out the impact of chip export restrictions
May 28:Nvidia reported that U.S. licensing requirements on its H20 AI chipscost the company $4.5 billion in chargesduring Q1. The company expects these requirements to result in an $8 billion hit to Nvidia’s revenue in Q2.
May 28:AMD kicks off its acquisition spree. The semiconductor companyannounced that it acquired Enosemi, a silicon photonics startup. Enosemi’s tech, which uses light photons to transmit data, is becoming an increasing area of interest for semiconductor companies.
Tensions start to flare between China and the U.S.
May 21:China’s Commerce Secretary didn’t like the U.S. guidance, issued on May 13, that warned U.S. companies that using Huawei’s AI chips “anywhere in the world” was a U.S. chip export violation. The commerce secretaryissued a statement that threatened legal actionagainst anyone caught enforcing that export restriction.
Intel may be starting to offload its non-core units
May 20:Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan seemingly got right to work on his plan to spin out Intel’s non-core business units. The semiconductor giant is reportedly looking tooffload its Networking and Edge units, which make chips for telecom equipment, and were responsible for $5.4 billion of the company’s 2024 revenue.
The Biden administration’s AI Diffusion rule is officially dead
May 13:Just days before the Biden administration’s Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule was set to go into place, theU.S. Department of Commerce formally rescinded it. The DOC said that it plans to issue new guidance in the future, and in the meantime, companies should remember that using Huawei’s Ascend AI chips anywhere in the world is a violation of U.S. export rules.
May 7:Just a week before the “Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion” was set to go into place, the Trump administration plans on taking a different path. According to multiple media outlets, includingAxiosandBloomberg, the administration won’t enforce the restrictions when they were supposed to start on May 15 and is instead working on its own framework.
Anthropic doubles down on its support of chip export restrictions
April 30: Anthropicdoubled down on its supportfor restricting U.S.-made chip exports, including some tweaks to the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, like imposing further restrictions on Tier 2 countries and dedicating resources to enforcement. An Nvidia spokesperson shot back, saying, “American firms should focus on innovation and rise to the challenge, rather than tell tall tales that large, heavy, and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled in ‘baby bumps’ or ‘alongside live lobsters.’”
April 22: Ahead of its Q1 earnings call, Intel said it was planning to lay off more than21,000 employees. The layoffs were meant to streamline management, something CEO Lip-Bu Tan has long said Intel needed to do, and help rebuild the company’s engineering focus.
The Trump administration further restricts chip exports
April 15: Nvidia’s H20 AI chip got hit with an exportlicensing requirement, the company disclosed in an SEC filing. The company added it expects $5.5 billion in charges related to this new requirement in the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year. The H20 is the most advanced AI chip Nvidia can still export to China in some form or fashion. TSMC and Intel reported similar expenses the same week.
Nvidia appears to talk its way out of further chip exports
April 9: Nvidia’s CEOJensen Huang was spotted attending dinner at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lagoresort, according to reports. At the time,NPR reportedHuang may have been able to spare Nvidia’s H20 AI chips from export restrictions upon agreeing to invest in AI data centers in the U.S.
April 3: Intel and TSMCallegedly reached a tentative agreementto launch a joint chipmaking venture. This joint venture would operate Intel’s chipmaking facilities, and TSMC would have a 20% stake in the new venture. Both companies declined to comment or confirm. If this deal doesn’t come to fruition, this is likely a decent preview of potential deals in this industry to come.
Intel spins off non-core assets, announces new initiative
April 1: CEO Lip-Bu Tan got to work right away. Just weeks after he joined Intel, the company announced that it was going tospin off non-core assetsso it could focus. He also said the company would launch new products, including custom semiconductors for customers.
March 12: Intel announced that industry veteran and former board memberLip-Bu Tan would return to the company as CEOon March 18. At the time of his appointment, Tan said Intel would be an “engineering-focused company” under his leadership.
February 28: Intel was supposed to start operating its first chip fabrication plant in Ohio this year. Instead,the company slowed down constructionon the plant for the second time in February. Now the $28 billion semiconductor project won’t wrap up construction until 2030 and may not even open until 2031.
January 13: With just a week left in office, former president Joe Bidenproposed sweeping new export restrictionson U.S.-made AI chips. This order created a three-tier structure that determined how many U.S. chips can be exported to each country. Under this proposal, Tier 1 countries faced no restrictions; Tier 2 countries had a chip purchase limit for the first time; and Tier 3 countries got additional restrictions.
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei weighs in on chip export restrictions
January 6: Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei co-wrote an op-ed inThe Wall Street Journalendorsing existing AI chip export controls and pointing to them as a reason why China’s AI market was behind the U.S. He also called on incoming president Donald Trump to impose further restrictions and to close loopholes that have allowed AI companies in China to still get their hands on these chips.
This story wasoriginally published onMay 9, 2025, and is regularly updated with new information.
Source: Techcrunch
