Silver Lake joins forces with Abu Dhabi’s MGX to buy Intel’s Altera

Abu Dhabi investment company MGX has partnered with Silver Lake to acquire a 51% stake in Intel’s programmable chip business, Altera, in a $3.3bn transaction, Bloomberg reports.

The deal marks Intel’s exit from a large portion of Altera, which it acquired for $16.7bn in 2015, as part of CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s strategy to divest non-core assets.

Altera produces semiconductors that can be reprogrammed after manufacturing, with applications ranging from industrial robotics to data centres and telecommunications. The business is expected to play a significant role in the expansion of artificial intelligence.

Omar Alismail, Chief Investment Officer for semiconductors and infrastructure at MGX, said: “Altera provides a foundational platform for next-generation computing. This is an opportunity to scale a company of such significance into a true global leader for the AI era.”

The investment highlights MGX’s growing focus on AI-linked infrastructure. The firm has already backed OpenAI and xAI and recently partnered with BlackRock and Microsoft on a $30bn plan to build data warehouses and energy infrastructure.

Silver Lake and MGX have also previously co-invested in Khazna, a UAE-based data centre operator. MGX itself is overseen by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser, who leads a $1.5tn portfolio spanning multiple industries.

The deal underscores private equity’s increasing role in the semiconductor and AI supply chain, as investors look to position themselves at the centre of next-generation computing.

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