Kai Nicol-Schwarz at CNBC, summarizing an X/Twitter post from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo:

The partnership would see Intel shipping its lowest-end M processor to Apple as early as second or third quarter 2027.

And:

Shares in Intel rose 10% on Friday after TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo posted on X that he expected Intel to begin shipping its lowest-end M processor to Apple as early as second or third quarter 2027.

I can’t tell if Nicol-Schwarz’s use of “its” following “Intel” is hasty and unclear writing, or a misunderstanding of who “owns” the M-series processors.

Here’s the first line of Kuo’s X/Twitter post:

Intel expected to begin shipping Apple’s lowest-end M processor as early as 2027.

Later, Kuo writes:

Apple’s plan is for Intel to begin shipping its lowest-end M processor […]

My guess is this is where Nicol-Schwarz got things wrong, misinterpreting “its” here to refer to Intel rather than to Apple, despite the clear (to me) antecedent.

These are Apple’s M-class processors, not Intel’s. The M-series (M1 through M5) is created by Apple. They design them in-house, then have a chip manufacturer (currently TSMC) build (fabricate, or “fab”) them to Apple’s specifications. The supposed deal would have a small portion of those chips fabbed by Intel instead of TSMC.