Intel’s ‘Made in the USA’ iPhone Chips are Already Rolling Off the Line

Apple’s new chip manufacturing partnership with Intel appears to be moving much faster than analysts had predicted, with a new report saying that Intel’s US-based foundries have already kick off at least some chip production.

This comes only days after The Wall Street Journal reported that the two companies had made it official, which in turn followed a report last week from Bloomberg that said the companies were merely in “early-stage talks.”

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Although Apple is also said to be in talks with Samsung for a similar chipmaking arrangement, its talks with Intel are clearly far from preliminary, considering the two have already signed a deal. Then again, we’ve also been hearing about the possibility of an Intel deal since November; it’s Samsung’s involvement that came as more of a surprise twist, so perhaps those talks are still more nascent.

It was supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who first shared the news last fall that Intel could soon be making low-end M-series chips for Apple, possibly starting as early as the M7 for the 2027–28 Mac lineup. A couple of weeks later, in December, Jeff Pu added that the deal would also likely include iPhone chips.

Now, Kuo says that Intel has already kicked off trial production. In a long-form post on X, the analyst notes that Intel is now producing “low-end/legacy iPhone, iPad, and Mac processors,” with iPhone chips accounting for roughly 80% of the orders.

That aligns with Apple’s production cycles for its lower-tier devices, where the iPhone still makes up the lion’s share of sales. While Kuo doesn’t specify which chips Intel is producing, he does note that it’s using its 18A-P nodes, while also evaluating the company’s “other advanced-node technologies.”

However, since ramping up new chip production doesn’t happen overnight, it’s likely already preparing to fabricate chips for the 2027 device lineup — specifically the M7 and A20, which aligns with Kuo and Pu’s predictions from last year.

While the talks are clearly far from preliminary, the chipmaking process definitely is, and Intel doesn’t appear to be producing anything that will go into consumer iPhones and Macs quite yet. Kuo doesn’t yet have any insight into the production timeline, scale, or schedule for the Intel-made chips, so it seems clear that this is merely trial production to ensure it can provide the necessary yields of high-quality chips to meet Apple’s requirements.

Still, Apple isn’t pulling any punches here. Rather than running a “low-risk trial order,” Kuo says it’s “kicked off three main product lines at Intel simultaneously” to validate the chipmaker’s ability to deliver a complete mix of chips at scale to see how Intel will perform under real-world conditions. It’s also a “foundry training opportunity” for Intel, which has yet to practice this kind of fabrication for third-party chips.

Interestingly, Kuo reports that Intel is only aiming for a 50–60% yield level for 2027, which means that as many as 40–50% of the chips that come off its lines might end up as “binned” versions being sold in lower-tier devices or saved for future products, as Apple did with the A18 Pro chip in the MacBook Neo.

Intel also isn’t about to displace Apple’s primary chip partner, TSMC, anytime soon. According to Kuo, even in Intel’s best-case scenario, TSMC will still produce over 90% of the chips that go into Apple’s devices.

However, Apple is playing the long game here. During its Q2 2026 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook explained how the company is facing challenges booking enough advanced nodes at TSMC to produce its chips as competitors like Google and Nvidia begin gobbling up capacity to have TSMC product AI-centric chips for their server farms. Those make TSMC far more money than margin-tight smartphone chips, so it’s understandable that the Taiwanese chipmaker is beginning to give them higher-priority access to its advanced nodes.

Apple’s long-standing partnership with TSMC has been rare for a company that’s often shown reluctance to put all of its eggs in a single basket. However, TSMC has also been the only real game in town when it comes to the demands of Apple silicon — especially for higher-end Pro, Max, and Ultra chips. Diversification likely hasn’t really been a viable option, and even now Apple is likely to face some challenges in getting Intel — and possibly Samsung — up tot the same level. However, with the AI gold rush changing the rules, it also has little choice but to change with them.