Chip designer AMD just entered the server business by snatching the free-thinking startup SeaMicro out from under the nose of Intel, its chief rival. But Intel isn't bothered. On Tuesday, the world's largest chip maker said it had the chance to buy SeaMicro – and turned it down.

"We weren't interested," said Diane Bryant, the general manager of Intel's data center and connected systems group. And then she landed a sucker punch. She said that Intel "wasn't even interested" in SeaMicro core technology, a server "fabric" that links hardware across machines and the data center.

Just over a month ago, executives from Intel and SeaMicro were all smiles at a press event in San Francisco. SeaMicro was announcing plans to ship servers with Intel's Xeon processors, and Intel executives seemed happy just to be in the room. SeaMicro is all about building low-power servers, and this was a way for Xeon to shrug off its reputation as a bit of a power hog.

But that was the end of January. Now, SeaMicro has sold itself to AMD and things between seem a little less rosy.

Last week, Intel's cloud guru Jason Waxman was careful not to say anything negative about AMD's acquisition. But Diane Bryant went a bit further on Tuesday during a press event where Intel unveiled its lastest Xeons.

According to her, AMD is just picking up Intel's leftovers. She told Wired that SeaMicro tried – and failed – to cut a deal with Intel in the weeks before the AMD buy. When Intel said it wasn't interested, Bryant explained, SeaMicro tried to license the company its server fabric, a proprietary networking technology used to connect the different components in the SeaMicro servers.

"We looked at the fabric and we told them thereafter that we weren't even interested in the fabric," she said.

That's a shot at SeaMicro. For them, the fabric is the secret sauce – a better alternative to the Ethernet and InfiniBand that's used in data centers and supercomputers. "With the acquisition of SeaMicro, we believe we will have the best server IP portfolio in the marketplace," AMD spokesman Phil Hughes told us today over email.

Last week, AMD said it was looking to license SeaMicro's fabric, which it sees as a key ingredient to building servers that can share information quickly without burning a whole lot of power. AMD – like any chipmaker casing an eye toward servers and mobile devices – is interested in making chips that can do more while using less power. Last week, AMD's Lisa Su said that SeaMicro's fabric complemented AMD's processor plans.

“We’ve been looking at the key technology innovations that are going to really disrupt the server market. We’ve been looking at fabric technologies — externally with a number of companies as well as internally, looking to develop ourselves — and we felt that SeaMicro was really the best option. It was proven, and it was in systems,” said Su, senior vice president and general manager for AMD's global business units.

It seems pretty certain that Intel will not be one of those companies.

Bryant told Wired that Intel has its own fabric plans. It just isn't ready to talk about them yet. "We believe we have a compelling solution; we believe we have a great road map," she said. "We just didn't feel that the solution that SeaMicro was offering was superior."

Additional reporting by Cade Metz