November 7, 2023 /SemiMedia/ -- According to reports, in order to focus on core chip manufacturing technology, Intel plans to transfer its silicon photonics business to electronic manufacturing services company Jabil.

The silicon photonics business was formed when Intel acquired Altera for $16.7 billion in 2015. The transfer to Jabil will include Intel's current silicon photonics business and customers, as well as future development of this technology.

The report pointed out that this is one of Intel's strategies to continue to divest non-core businesses. The transfer of the silicon photonics business to Jabil is the third major transaction Intel has made recently and the tenth business it has exited in the past two and a half years.

"This is our tenth business exit in the past two and a half years, saving $1.8 billion annually and demonstrating our efforts to optimize our portfolio and drive long-term value creation," said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger.

"This deal better positions Jabil to cater to the needs of our valued customers in the data center industry, including hyperscale, next-wave clouds, and AI cloud data centers. These complex environments present unique challenges, and we are committed to tackling them head-on and delivering innovative solutions to support the evolving demands of the data center ecosystem," stated Matt Crowley, Senior Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Infrastructure at Jabil. "This deal enables Jabil to expand its presence in the data center value chain."

Through this transaction, Jabil will be the primary supplier of the current silicon photonics-based pluggable optical transceiver product lines, and will assume development of future module generations. Future products will continue to use Intel’s silicon photonics technology, and their brand over the next six months will transition to Jabil.