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Competition is one of the greatest things about business. It provides a great way to make better products. It leads to innovation. Then again, it apparently also leads to some staggering prices, and an investment that might make some people cringe in their seats. That is, if this latest report from The New York Times is accurate. They’ve investigated the rise of competitors against that of Intel, and it seems that the cost of creating a chip from scratch is pretty much mind-boggling.

According to the Times, because companies like Qualcomm, Apple, and NVIDIA are doing their own thing when it comes to chip manufacturing, it could cost them up to $1 billion. And that’s not even counting investing in a factory, which apparently rockets the price up to $3 billion. We’re guessing that the numbers are coming from the idea that Apple and these companies are basically creating new chips, while Intel has been doing it for long enough, that they’ve got the utensils, means, and know-how to create chips from existing technology.

We’re sure that Intel would love to push a report like this, showcasing how, if you were a company looking for a chip manufacturer and didn’t want to spend, you know, $1 billion, then they’ve got the perfect option for you: their Atom-based processors. While they are effectively low-cost, it’s also known that they consume power at a pretty substantial rate, and therefore their avoidance is pretty understandable. We’re wondering how accurate this tale is, in particular regards to Apple, considering Apple has created their own chips for previous hardware in the past. It must not be breaking the bank too much, either way, as the A4 processor is set to debut in the iPad in just about a month.

[via The New York Times]