Foxconn & Intel: Smart Manufacturing, Cities and Robots

Foxconn, the world's largest electronics manufacturer, is collaborating with US technology company Intel to accelerate the development and deployment of ‘next-generation’ AI infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms.

The collaboration also aims to accelerate the large-scale deployment of AI-driven technologies across edge and physical AI applications.

The companies aim to jointly develop AI systems that will be used in AI data centres as well as in factories, smart cities and in robotics. 

Intel has turned around from its difficult position and heavy manufacturing losses in 2025. Its first-quarter revenue in 2026 was US$13.6bn, up 7% year-over-year.

The agreement between Intel and Foxconn

In physical AI, Intel and Foxconn will jointly target emerging applications such as agentic AI, edge intelligence and robotics.

The agreement also focuses on advancing high-speed interconnect technologies, thermal and liquid cooling designs, system telemetry and AI data centre scalability. 

In the AI Rack domain, the two companies will explore the development and commercialisation of rack-scale AI infrastructure solutions, including Intel Xeon-based CPU racks and AI accelerator architectures.

Additionally Intel and Foxconn will explore opportunities in design services, including custom ASICs (custom chips), SoCs (System on a Chip) and system integration solutions.

Smart manufacturing, automotives and robotics

Foxconn, a long-standing NVIDIA partner, says its collaboration with Intel will further promote and support diverse applications across smart manufacturing, smart cities, robotics and automotives.

Foxconn is expanding aggressively into the automotive sector with its electric vehicle subsidiary Foxtron Vehicle Technologies.

Young Liu, Chairman and CEO of Foxconn, says: “AI is rapidly transforming industries and society worldwide. 

“Through our ‘3+3+3’ strategy, Foxconn continues to advance key technologies including AI, semiconductors and next-generation communications, while driving the development of our three core platforms: smart manufacturing, smart EV and smart city. 

“Our collaboration with Intel will combine the strengths of both companies across computing platforms, system integration and global supply chain capabilities to jointly build next-generation AI infrastructure, Edge AI and Physical AI ecosystems, accelerating the adoption of AI applications worldwide.”

New capabilities in AI

Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s CEO, says: “The rapid growth of AI, especially in inference and agentic workloads at scale, is redefining what modern computing must deliver. 

“These demands require innovation across the full stack, from new silicon and chip design to rackscale systems and extending all the way to edge and physical AI deployments. 

“Our collaboration with Foxconn brings together two innovation leaders with deep expertise in chip design, rack-scale solutions and global systems integration. 

“Together, we are accelerating the delivery of end-to-end platforms that unlock new capabilities and extend the impact of AI worldwide.”

Intel’s turnaround

In 2025 Intel was fighting for its survival amid heavy manufacturing losses. Lip-Bu told investors in the company's first quarter earnings call: “A year ago, the conversation about Intel Corporation was about whether we could survive. 

“Today, it is about how quickly we can add manufacturing capacity and scale our supply to meet enormous demand for our products.”

The company has benefited from the US government investing in the company, a partnership with Elon Musk’s Terafab project and soaring demand for its products amid the AI data centre build out. 

Intel’s expanded partnerships

Intel announced its collaboration with Foxconn along with several strategic partnerships including an expansion of its existing partnership with Siemens and work on foundry tools and quantum computing with Hitachi.

Intel’s expanded collaboration with Siemens will enable the exploration of use cases for purpose-built Intel silicon for Siemens’ varied compute requirements, which “may include edge devices, high-performance computing and robotics” according to a press release issued by Intel.