Intels Chip Business Shows Signs of Life After Years of Struggle

At a tech conference in San Francisco this week, admirers surrounded Lip-Bu Tan, the chief executive of Intel, waiting to take selfies with a man few of them had heard of before last year.The spectacle made Matthew Sysak, a senior executive at the tech company Lumentum, shake his head.Watching from a few feet away, he compared the attention on Mr.

Tan to the industry’s rock star treatment of Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chip maker Nvidia, now the world’s most valuable company.“It’s a traveling circus,” he said in disbelief.Not long ago, Intel, which was once one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, was described as Silicon Valley’s fallen icon.Sales were plummeting, costs soaring and debts mounting.

The U.S.government intervened last summer and took a 10 percent stake in the company.Now, Intel is showing signs of a turnaround.

Its value has more than tripled to $650 billion, its business has started to rebound behind the artificial intelligence boom, and it has added big customers like Nvidia and Apple.The stakes are high for the company and Mr.Tan, who took over in March last year.

Intel is a cornerstone of the U.S.government’s push to rebuild the nation’s semiconductor manufacturing and wean Silicon Valley off its dependence on Taiwan.If Intel is unable to turn itself around now — when nearly the entire chip industry is cashing in on A.I.

— a fix may not be possible, said Chris Miller, the author of “Chip War,” a book that recounts the rise of the semiconductor industry.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....