Tech giant Apple has officially acquired Intel’s 5G modem business for $1 billion and will acquire about 2,200 Intel employees together with intellectual property, equipment, and leases.
According to an article published by CNet, the two companies announced the deal expected to close in the fourth quarter where they will be working together to develop 5G network while keeping “critical” intellectual property and modem technology Intel has created.
Intel CEO Bob Swan said in a statement: “We’re looking forward to putting our full effort into 5G where it most closely aligns with the needs of our global customer base, including network operators, telecommunications equipment manufacturers and cloud service providers.”
Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji meanwhile said in a press release: “We’ve worked with Intel for many years and know this team shares Apple’s passion for designing technologies that deliver the world’s best experiences for our users.”
The new Apple engineers, “together with our significant acquisition of innovative [intellectual property], will help expedite our development on future products and allow Apple to further differentiate moving forward,” Srouji added.
The acquisition of Intel’s technology will allow Apple to build its own chips that connect its phones to the new, super-fast 5G wireless network.
New iPhones such as iPhone XS, XS Max and XR — use Intel modems while older iPhones use 4G chips from Qualcomm.
(Photo source: techcrunch.com/ pcmag.com)
