At present 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 the moment seeing shortages that it expects to peak within the first quarter of subsequent yr — 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 at the moment that Intel may even launch new AI GPUs each yr, following Nvidia and AMD in shaking up their conventional cadence to deal with the large 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 sizzling new Panther Lake and its 18A course of to indicate the world it will possibly 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 yr and slowly rolling out others in 2026. Right here’s one other doable motive why: Zinsner hinted at the moment that Panther Lake will probably 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 very least the primary half of the yr.”
Whereas Intel has repeatedly pushed again in opposition to the concept that its 18A course of had poor yields, the corporate admitted to buyers and analysts at the moment that it’s not able to be an enormous monetary success both: yields are “ample to deal with the availability however not the place we’d like them to be to drive the suitable stage of margins,” says Zinsner, suggesting that it may be 2026, and even 2027 for an “acceptable stage of yields” in that regard.
For now, Intel will probably be “working carefully with prospects to maximise our out there 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 feels like taking part in with the costs it prices 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 at the moment that he’s not going to put money into extra capability until there’s “dedicated exterior demand,” and Zinsner says investments in capability subsequent yr received’t “considerably change expectations”.
Intel says that 18A will probably be a “long-lived node” that may energy “at the very least the subsequent three generations of consumer and server merchandise.” In the event you 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 steered at the moment that prospects have stepped in to save lots of 14A, and Intel, that the corporate is “delighted and extra assured” in it, and Zinsner says it’s not solely “off to begin,” however higher than 18A was at this level “by way of efficiency and yields.”