Intel

Intel is a semiconductor company whose historical dominance in PC-era CPUs made it, as FreeS Fund's Li Feng put it, the foundational "bricks" of computing — with its "Intel Inside" marketing program turning a B2B chipmaker into a consumer-recognized brand that reinforced its industry-standard position . The company has been an active corporate investor in China's tech ecosystem, notably as the earliest and lead investor in Horizon Robotics' A+ round in 2017, where it secured the largest allocation by moving faster than many financial investors . Intel has also collaborated with Chinese startups on technical development, including a joint project with Manycore Tech (Kujiale), Intel Labs, and European research institutions to build the SPEAR intelligent simulation platform, announced in early 2023 . In the foundry landscape, Intel's 10nm manufacturing process placed it behind TSMC and Samsung's 7nm capabilities as of 2020 reporting , and the company has since faced intensifying competitive pressure from NVIDIA's AI chip monopoly and AMD's resurgence .