Immediately on the corporate’s Q3 2025 earnings name, the place Intel noticed its first revenue in practically two years due primarily to these lifelines, CEO Lip-Bu Tan and CFO David Zinsner defined how the corporate doesn’t but have sufficient chips. It’s at present seeing shortages that it expects to peak within the first quarter of subsequent 12 months — within the meantime, leaders say they’re going to prioritize AI server chips over some client processors because it offers with provide and demand.
“We anticipate CCG [Intel’s consumer chips] to be down modestly and DCAI [Intel’s server chips] to be up strongly as we prioritize capability for server shipments over entry stage consumer elements,” Intel says. Tan revealed right now that Intel will even launch new AI GPUs every 12 months, following Nvidia and AMD in shaking up their conventional cadence to handle the large demand for AI servers. It’s not clear what which may imply for these hoping for extra Intel gaming GPUs.
Whereas all eyes are on Intel’s sizzling new Panther Lake and its 18A course of to point out the world it may nonetheless take advantage of potent client PC chips and make them in-house, the corporate reiterated it’s solely launching one SKU of Panther Lake this 12 months and slowly rolling out others in 2026. Right here’s one other attainable purpose why: Zinsner hinted right now that Panther Lake shall be a “fairly costly” product to begin with, and Intel’s going to must push its present Lunar Lake chips as an alternative “in a minimum of the primary half of the 12 months.”
Whereas Intel has repeatedly pushed again towards the concept its 18A course of had poor yields, the corporate admitted to traders and analysts right now that it’s not able to be an enormous monetary success both: yields are “sufficient to handle the provision however not the place we’d like them to be to drive the suitable stage of margins,” says Zinsner, suggesting that it is likely to be 2026, and even 2027 for an “acceptable stage of yields” in that regard.
For now, Intel shall be “working intently with prospects to maximise our accessible output, together with adjusting pricing and blend, to shift demand in the direction of merchandise the place we’ve provide and so they have demand” — which appears like taking part in with the costs it costs PC makers to stay Intel inside their computer systems and pointing them at Lunar Lake elements as an alternative of sizzling new ones. Tan reiterated right now that he’s not going to spend money on extra capability except there’s “dedicated exterior demand,” and Zinsner says investments in capability subsequent 12 months gained’t “considerably change expectations”.
Intel says that 18A shall be a “long-lived node” that can energy “a minimum of the subsequent three generations of consumer and server merchandise.” If you happen to had been hoping for a return to the “tick-tock” days the place Intel would alternate between shrinking its chips and releasing new architectures each technology, that’s not taking place right here.
However that doesn’t imply Intel will cancel its subsequent node, Intel 14A, because it warned it would. Tan advised right now that prospects have stepped in to avoid wasting 14A, and Intel, that the corporate is “delighted and extra assured” in it, and Zinsner says it’s not solely “off to a superb begin,” however higher than 18A was at this level “by way of efficiency and yields.”