This chip will be aimed at thin and lightweight laptops capable of running high-end video games. The goal here is to grab marketshare from NVIDIA, which is the dominant force in the mobile video card market. A low-power processor from Intel with integrated graphics from AMD could potentially remove the need for NVIDIA GPUs in select target markets.
The article contains a quote from an AMD spokesperson so it appears this is not just a loose rumor:
An AMD spokesman said that laptops built on Intel's new chip won't compete directly with those based on AMD's coming Ryzen Mobile, another power-efficient chip that combines general-purpose processing and graphics. The Intel chip will appeal to serious gamers, he said. The AMD unit, which the company expects to ship by the end of the year, is capable of running games, but not specialized for that purpose.It will be the first collaboration between Intel and AMD since the 1980s. Analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy, who was once a corporate vice president at AMD, explains Intel is more comfortable competing with AMD than NVIDIA. He suggests NVIDIA is a harder nut to crack:
"Strategically, Intel is more comfortable competing with AMD than Nvidia, " Mr. Moorhead said. "They feel like they know what to do to compete," so they can afford to cooperate to some degree.