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 shopper components,” Intel says. Tan revealed immediately that Intel will even launch new AI GPUs each 12 months, following Nvidia and AMD in shaking up their conventional cadence to handle the massive demand for AI servers. It’s not clear what that may imply for these hoping for extra Intel gaming GPUs.
Whereas all eyes are on Intel’s scorching 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 motive why: Zinsner hinted immediately that Panther Lake might be a “fairly costly” product to start out with, and Intel’s going to must push its present Lunar Lake chips as an alternative “in at the least 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 immediately that it’s not able to be an enormous monetary success both: yields are “enough 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 could be 2026, and even 2027 for an “acceptable stage of yields” in that regard.
For now, Intel might be “working carefully with prospects to maximise our accessible output, together with adjusting pricing and blend, to shift demand in direction of merchandise the place we’ve got provide they usually have demand” — which appears like enjoying with the costs it prices PC makers to stay Intel inside their computer systems and pointing them at Lunar Lake components as an alternative of scorching new ones. Tan reiterated immediately that he’s not going to spend money on extra capability until there’s “dedicated exterior demand,” and Zinsner says investments in capability subsequent 12 months gained’t “considerably change expectations”.
Intel says that 18A might be a “long-lived node” that may energy “at the least the following three generations of shopper and server merchandise.” Should you have 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 occurring right here.
However that doesn’t imply Intel will cancel its subsequent node, Intel 14A, because it warned it would. Tan instructed immediately 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 great begin,” however higher than 18A was at this level “by way of efficiency and yields.”
