Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, made some interesting comments after the recent earnings call, regarding upcoming Nova Lake CPUs, Coral Rapids server CPUs with SMT-enabled P-Cores, and a word on its GPU strategy.
Intel Changing Its Execution Plans: SMT Coming Back To P-Cores With Coral Rapids Server CPUs, Nova Lake For Consumers Later Next Year
As of a few hours ago, Intel has planned to lay off an additional 30% of its workforce, bringing the headcount down to 75,000 employees, they have said to drop out of the cutting-edge chip race (18A/14A process nodes) if they don’t see major interests from external customers, and well, their financials are in dire straits. So, where does Intel, along with its newest CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, go from here?
Key Points:
- First Panther Lake Mobile SKU Launching In Late 2025
- Panther Lake Ramp & More SKUs Planned In Early 2026
- Nova Lake Aims To Bridge High-End Desktop CPU Gap With AMD
- Nova Lake Launches In Late 2026 for mobile and desktop platforms
- Intel 18A to be the main driver for at least three generations of client/enterprise products
- Diamond Rapids P-Core CPUs with up to 256 cores In 2H 2026
- Clearwater Forest E-Core CPUs with up to 288 cores In Mid 2026
- Coral Rapids P-Core To Replace Diamond Rapids By 2028-2029
- SMT Coming Back To P-Core With Coral Rapids Server Being The First To Reintroduce It
- Consolidation and Building Upon x86 CPU and Xe GPUs
- Intel 14A targets 2028-2029 timeframe, tackles TSMC’s A14
Well, a lot of what Intel will be doing in the coming quarters and years is currently being laid out, and the company gave a small hint of what to expect from them. Starting with Panther Lake, this is going to be a key 18A product that will target the consumer segment. Intel says that they are focused on enabling the launch of Panther Lake this year, with the first SKU being delivered by the year-end and additional SKUs being planned for the first half of 2026. Intel has a lot riding on Panther Lake, and its success will help determine its next move point.
However, Lip also states that the ramp of Panther Lake CPUs will be equally essential as the launch, since the margins on Panther Lake are going to be tight due to higher wafer costs. So once Panther Lake matures, and subsequently, the yields improve, they will get to the right “cost structure” which will be ultimately beneficial for them.
Our foundry and product teams remain focused on enabling Panther Lake to launch this year.
Next, on to our core x86 franchise. In client, our top priority is delivering our first Panther Lake SKU by year-end. followed by additional SKUs in the first half of 2026. The successful launch of the Panther Lake will solidify our strong share in the notebook market across consumer and enterprise.
So, so far, I think it gives me a lot of confidence that we can launch our Panther Lake SKU by the end of the year.
The second big driver of gross margins is the ramp that Lip-Bu just talked about of Panther Lake. Obviously, we’re in the early stages of the maturity of Panther Lake. So the cost per wafer is going to be higher. And so that is going to drive some headwinds. Obviously, as Lip-Bu said, yields improve, more importantly, volumes increase. that reduces the cost. And so that will transition to a tailwind ultimately.
I think next year, the big benefit for us is this significant ramp in Panther Lake given that we’re bringing a fair amount of wafers back inside, so that drives a lower cost, and we get the better cost structure of Panther Lake showing up with the higher volumes, that’s clearly going to be beneficial to us in terms of gross margin. That said, a lot of this will be determined on mix, and we’ll have to see how things play out through next year in terms of the mix.
Lip-Bu Tan – Intel CEO
But what about next-gen? Well, Intel’s CEO is also disclosing that its Nova Lake CPUs will close the gap in the high-end desktop market space. Nova Lake CPUs will be launching on both desktop and mobile platforms, but clearly, this lineup is more focused towards the desktop side, where AMD is showing them some brutal competition and leadership across all segments, performance, gaming, efficiency, and multi-threading.
It is also stated that 18A will remain the foundation of at least three generations of client and server products, so it looks like Nova Lake will be using an optimized version of 18A. Nova Lake comes with up to 52 cores and the latest Xe graphics architecture, so really something to look forward too after the disastrous Arrow Lake desktop launch.
We still have gaps to close in the high-end desktop market, but I’m encouraged by our unmatched go-to-market reach, our x86 ecosystem and the progress we are making on Nova Lake due out at the end of 2026.
18A is a foundation for at least 3 generation of our Intel client and server business products.
Lip-Bu Tan – Intel CEO
Switching over to the server-side, Intel confirms a new “Rapids” family, which will succeed Diamond Rapids. Diamond Rapids, expected next year, is going to feature Panther Cove P-Cores, while Clearwater Forest will be using Darkmont E-Cores. The E-Core lineup will also be launching next year and offers up to 288 cores.
The successor to Diamond Rapids will be called Coral Rapids and is going to aim for a launch in 2028-2029, but it comes with a major change on the architecture side, which was dropped from Diamond Rapids.
I think clearly, we are looking at review our road map. And then you mentioned about Clearwater Forest, then the Diamond Rapids. And clearly, I think the time frame is plus and minus 6 months. And I think overall, I think we are pretty much focused on that. And the next generation of the Coral Rapids, and clearly, we’re going to review the whole coral market, and that will be on the ’28, ’29, and we make sure that we have a robust products to come out.
I have also taken steps to correct past mistakes regarding multi-threading capabilities on our P-cores. I’m also making progress on bringing in new leadership in our data center business and look forward to being able to announce these changes next quarter.
Lip-Bu Tan – Intel CEO
The major change is that Intel is bringing back SMT to its P-Core architecture, at least on the server end. Starting with Coral Rapids, Intel will once again fuse SMT within its P-Core architecture, something that was entirely phased out with Lion Cove P-Cores and also the upcoming Panther Cove / Cougar Cove P-Cores. So it looks like Intel’s engineers will be going back to the drawing board.
The exclusion of SMT from its server lineup seems to have been a mistake, as Lip-Bu Tan states. So they are working to bring that back and are doubling down on it. It is also said that the mistake might have led to their server share dropping to 55% which is a bold confirmation. It means that AMD has crunched back a hefty 45% market share with its EPYC lineup, as reported a few days ago.
So I think let me just look at the server market. Clearly, we still have about 55% market shares. And clearly, we have some mistakes we made on the high-end performing server area. And one thing is this called synchronized multi-trading. And I think it used to be Intel’s strength, but somehow we overlooked it. And then now we are doubling down, making sure that we will have that performance gap we can narrow. And then meanwhile, we’re also engaging with some of the big hyperscalers and also high-end enterprise. We learn what are the workload they require, and we’re laser focused on getting the product road map clear and simplify and make it easier to work with us.
Lip-Bu Tan – Intel CEO
And lastly, there is a mention of Xe GPUs and the x86 CPU architecture, and how Intel plans to build and consolidate upon both ends. Surely, Xe GPUs will remain a core focus of the Blue Team for their AI strategy and also consumer-level products such as iGPUs. Even as of last week, the company is still adding support for its bigger “Battlemage” GPU.
The discrete product family, such as “Arc,” might not have been mentioned, and although there are reports that the company isn’t giving up on discrete products any time soon, they might not be a major investment or might be scaled down further. We just hope that Intel continues with the Arc lineup, both for discrete products and integrated products.
Finally, turning to AI. In the past, we approached AI with a traditional silicon and training-centric mindset without a cohesive silicon systems software stack and strategy. While we do need to build and consolidate upon our silicon franchise based upon our x86 CPU and our Xe GPUs, we recognize the need to move up the abstraction stack into system and software. This is the area where Intel has traditionally been weak or entirely absent. But we intend to incubate and grow these important skill sets and capabilities under my leadership. This will take time, but it will be vital for Intel to stay relevant in the next wave of computing.
Lip-Bu Tan – Intel CEO
So that’s all for this round of earnings call, Intel has a lot riding on their back, and Lip-Bu Tan does sound very optimistic about some products but he also remains cautious about the progress of their foundry division, and while plans are underway with the restricting efforts, only time will tell how it all pans out for Team Blue. As one man said, you can do all the talking you want, but in the end, it’s the products that do the real talking.
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