Report: Apple will use its own chips in Macs, replacing Intel

Apple will begin building its own processors into Mac computers as early as 2020, displacing the Intel chips that now power the devices, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The move is part of a long-term, multistage Apple plan to use processors of its own design across all of its products, with the goal of making them interoperate more smoothly, says the report, citing unnamed sources.

Apple has made little secret of its chip design ambitions in recent years, and speculation that the Intel chips would be replaced in Macs is nothing new. Today’s report, however, provides a time frame for the transition.

Intel’s shares are down more than 8% on the report. Apple now constitutes about 5% of Intel’s revenue. 

If today’s report proves true, Intel will still not be shut out of Apple anytime soon. The company has made inroads into Apple’s biggest product–the iPhone–in recent years, providing more than half of the baseband modems for the device. Fast Company has reported that Intel and Apple have even discussed collaborating on a full system-on-a-chip design that contains the iPhone’s GPU, CPU, and modem.