It’s conceivable Qualcomm’s CEO, Cristiano Amon, imagines a grand alliance of sorts with Intel to really challenge Nvidia in AI, or that he sees the possibility of throwing Intel a financial lifeline,

Qualcomm Inc. has approached Intel Corp. to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, a person with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever M&A deals.

A late-Friday report that Qualcomm recently made a "takeover approach" to Intel sent the latter company's shares higher.