Benzinga | Aug 25, 2021 07:09AM EDT

Intel's Delay Is Proving To Be Nvidia, AMD's Gain

* Reuters reports that the U.S. Department of Energy is nearing a deal to buy a supercomputer made with NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) chips due to a delay from Intel Corp's (NASDAQ:INTC).

* A key lab is waiting for a larger supercomputer from Intel that got delayed. Intel's supercomputer for the Argonne National Lab near Chicago was touted as U.S.' fastest computer when announced in 2019.

* Nvidia and AMD's Polaris will come online this year and serve as a test machine for Argonne to prepare its software for Intel's device. However, it will not serve as a replacement for Intel's machine.

* Reuters notes that the $500 million Intel contract for the supercomputer is expected to deliver exaflop performance or perform 1 quintillion per second.

* Based on Nvidia's A100 chips and AMD's Rome and Milan chips, Polaris will be able to make some exaflop calculations but mostly work at slower speeds.

* Intel said it is committed to delivering the computer by 2022.

* Price Action: NVDA shares traded lower by 0.35% at $217.17, and AMD shares traded higher by 0.07% at $107.73 in the premarket session on the last check Wednesday.