Intel once had the chance to acquire approximately 15% of OpenAI's shares but opted out of investing due to lack of confidence in its prospects.

Undoubtedly, Intel was a technological leader over the past 20 years, providing support for the majority of global computing. Its processors are found in personal computers, enterprise servers, and large data centers, marking Intel's leading position in chip manufacturing.

However, Intel encountered a bottleneck transitioning from 14nm to 10nm process technology between 2015 and 2016. This was supposed to be a significant breakthrough, but Intel fell several years behind, allowing competitors like TSMC and Samsung to catch up and even surpass it.

In 2020, Intel announced a significant delay in the launch of its 7nm process technology. These issues gradually placed Intel at a competitive disadvantage in the market, and even Pat Gelsinger's plan for chip foundry services has not been able to rescue Intel thus far.

On the other hand, Intel missed some excellent investment opportunities in the past. For instance, OpenAI, a global leader in the AI field, sought Intel's support between 2017 and 2018. OpenAI was willing to offer Intel 15% of its shares in exchange for an investment of $1 billion.

After lengthy discussions and consideration of various proposals, including one where Intel could manufacture server hardware for OpenAI at cost price (allowing Intel to acquire an additional 15% of the shares, making it a total of 30%), the deal was ultimately declined by Bob Swan, Intel's CEO at the time. Swan doubted the short-term success of generative AI models, fearing that Intel might not recoup its investment.

In a sense, Swan's perspective wasn't entirely wrong. It wasn't until November 2022 that OpenAI's ChatGPT truly took the world by storm. If Intel was not prepared for a long-term investment and was only looking for a short-term return, the difficulty was indeed high.

Now, it appears that Intel missed a significant investment opportunity, even a chance to compete with NVIDIA. OpenAI sought Intel's support to reduce its dependency on NVIDIA GPUs. A partnership with Intel could have allowed OpenAI to establish its own AI infrastructure, such as chips, potentially changing the hardware infrastructure landscape in the AI field.

Another reason for Intel's reluctance to invest was that its most profitable division at the time, the data center division, was unwilling to develop and manufacture chips for OpenAI at cost price. After all, the data center division was a major revenue generator and its reluctance was somewhat understandable.

Now, as Intel continues to lose ground in its traditional chip sector and has made no significant achievements in the AI field, it's clear that the technological landscape can change dramatically in less than three decades.