Semiconductor firm Intel is attempting to court Apple as its next potential investor.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the struggling chipmaker has spoken to Apple about a potential cash injection, as well as exploring ways the two companies might work together again.

Apple is just one of a number of companies Intel has reached out to regarding potential investments and partnerships, the report added, although it did not name any of the other firms that have been approached. The talks are in their early stages and are not guaranteed to lead to an agreement, Bloomberg went on to note.

The news follows a slew of large investment deals secured by Intel in recent months, including $2 billion from SoftBank in August and $5bn from Nvidia last week as part of an agreement between the two companies to jointly develop custom data center and personal computing hardware.

Last month, the US government also announced it had taken a 9.9 percent stake in Intel, with the state investing $8.9 billion in the chipmaker – $5.7bn of which came from funds that would have been awarded to the company through the CHIPS Act, and $3.2bn from funds under the Secure Enclave program.

Intel is clearly looking to reverse its fortunes after what has been a turbulent time for the US chipmaker, having seen its market share eroded both in chip design and manufacture, damaging the capabilities of the nation's only leading-edge chipmaker.

Apple was previously one of Intel’s biggest customers but ended the 15-year partnership in 2020 after opting to use its own Arm-based processors for future Mac products, for which it contracted Intel rival TSMC to manufacture.

Bloomberg noted that even if Apple decides to invest, it's unlikely the iPhone maker would switch back to using Intel chips in its devices.

In early August, Apple unveiled its American Manufacturing Program (AMP), a $600bn investment to support US production and secure the US domestic chip supply chain, with CEO Tim Cook saying AMP will allow the company to expand its manufacturing efforts in the country with ten companies that produce component parts for Apple products.

The first AMP partner companies included Applied Materials, Amkor, Broadcom, Corning, Coherent, GlobalFoundries, GlobalWafers America, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and TSMC.