The ghost of Pat Gelsinger hung closely over Intel‘s fab plant in Arizona earlier this month as journalists from all over the world gathered for Intel’s annual Tech Tour, and I can inform you now that he was laughing his ass off in triumph.
Gelsinger, Intel’s former CEO, was unceremoniously jettisoned by Intel’s board late final 12 months, and whereas he technically resigned, it was widely reported that if he hadn’t, he’d have been fired. Throughout his tenure, which some within the business world referred to as “disastrous“, Gelsinger guess closely on chip manufacturing by Intel Foundry to the tune of tens of billions of {dollars}.
These investments, in turn, eventually produced headline-making billions of dollars in losses on Intel’s stability sheet, as tools bills far outpaced income from chip gross sales. Add to that, Intel “missed” the AI revolution that despatched Nvidia hovering into the multi-trillion greenback membership on Wall Avenue by not having an AI chip of its personal to compete with Nvidia.
By betting on manufacturing, Gelsinger misplaced his job, and the proverbial sharks from Wall Avenue to Reddit began circling Intel as speak swirled of a breakup of the corporate to reserve it from Gelsinger’s foolhardy emphasis on a producing foundry to compete with TSMC.
Having seen Intel’s newest chip fabrication plant first-hand, nonetheless, I can A) completely see how Gelsinger blew by tens of billions of {dollars}; B) say with out hesitation that the primary product to come back off the road because of that funding, Intel Panther Lake, goes to be an enormous win for Intel; and C) hope that Gelsinger enjoys seeing all of his critics confirmed phenomenally mistaken.
First, let’s talk Panther Lake
The first consumer chips to come off the line at Fab 52 in Arizona, where Intel’s new 18A fabrication node is housed, will be the new Intel Core Ultra series 3 chips, formerly codenamed Panther Lake.
These chips are designed for laptops as well as lighter-duty AIO and small form factor PCs, just as Intel Lunar Lake was before it. What’s different here, though, is that there is a lot of new technology backing up these chips that no one else is using, such as backside power delivery and an off-die interconnected GPU that allows for greater GPU core scaling.
The former allows power to be delivered from a layer below the transistors, granting a lot more design freedom than you get with the frontside power delivery used by TSMC and Samsung, and thus Intel’s rivals. It is a small change, but it surely lets you scale your chip in ways in which weren’t potential earlier than utilizing interconnects, and has the potential to enhance energy effectivity and sign integrity general.
For the GPU, it can additionally function a brand new Intel Xe3 GPU structure that helps multi-frame technology, which, when paired with Intel XeSS upscaling, has the potential to show just about any thin-and-light ultrabook right into a finances gaming laptop computer.
I bought to check out a Panther Lake-powered laptop computer with Painkiller 3 for a spell, and even with out body technology, the sport was simply clearing a 50 fps minimal at 1080p with XeSS set to High quality on the very best graphics settings potential. Granted, it is one sport, however it’s a fast-paced shooter, and there was zero perceived latency whereas I performed with MFG, and the sport was clearing about 140 fps on common.
There is not a skinny and lightweight laptop computer in the marketplace that may do that proper now—particularly not the MacBook Air, the laptop computer that Panther Lake is particularly gunning for—and most video games in the marketplace aren’t fast-paced first-person shooters, so MFG will likely be an enormous promote for these units.
As for non-gaming efficiency, I have never benchmarked any of those programs myself, so I can not provide you with scores, however even Intel Lunar Lake chips are virtually even in real-world use towards a MacBook Air with M4, say no matter you need concerning the numerous design variations between the 2 ecosystems.
Microsoft Phrase opens just about the identical on each programs, encoding video off both CPU takes about the identical period of time, and whereas the MacBook Air common will get higher battery life, Lunar Lake chips have closed that hole sufficient that you really want to have a really particular cause to maintain your laptop computer unplugged for twenty-four hours straight frequently for the distinction to matter.
There’s not going to be sufficient right here to get a Mac consumer to change to a Home windows laptop computer, however no chip goes to get an Apple fan to change. What it does although is make it so Home windows customers do not have a cause to change to a Mac, or, most likely extra importantly, a Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered Home windows laptop computer.,
With all that mentioned, although, I did get to see inner efficiency information from Intel engineers that places Panther Lake above Intel Arrow Lake performance-wise, whereas maintaining the power effectivity of Lunar Lake, which is a hell of a combo if it holds up. I will not know till I check these chips myself after CES 2026, clearly, however from what I noticed, Intel should not be too far off from these efficiency claims.
And whereas Apple might but retain the title for greatest single-core efficiency on Geekbench among the many skinny and lights, that hole will not less than get rather a lot smaller even with the Apple M5 chip, which can nonetheless be utilizing TSMC’s 3nm node versus Intel’s 1.8nm, since TSMC has struggled to get its N2 node up and working on schedule.
Intel 18A: Gelsinger’s gamble might become Intel’s windfall
Much of Intel’s future is going to depend on the success of Intel Foundry’s 18A processor fabrication node and the products produced on this node. Panther Lake, Intel Nova Lake (Intel’s next-gen desktop processors), and Intel Clearwater Forest (Intel’s new Xeon 6+ datacenter chips), are all 18A fabbed, but ultimately Intel’s success isn’t depending on whether those chips outsell the competition, but whether those chips convince AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and sure, even Apple, to fabricate their chips on Intel’s nodes moderately than TSMC’s or Samsung’s.
The guess that Gelsinger made, that Intel might manufacture chips as superior as TSMC’s within the US, price him his job. To materially meet up with TSMC when it comes to course of know-how was by no means going to be low cost, and Wall Avenue would a lot moderately Intel had merely outsourced its chipmaking to TSMC solely moderately than make investments tens of billions to construct up the chip crops to do it itself.
Gelsinger made these investments, although, and touring Intel’s Fab 52 in Arizona was revelatory. I wasn’t allowed to take footage contained in the plant itself, sadly, however the plant was already buzzing with manufacturing. Prospects are already spending cash to fab their chips on Intel 18A, and safety round who these prospects are is understandably very tight, as is the suppliers Intel makes use of, what equipment is getting used, and so forth.
I am positive quite a lot of company spies and even international intelligence brokers would have paid absolutely anything to get the tour I did, and I perceive why. Intel 18A may properly be probably the most superior course of know-how ever devised by people, with an Intel product supervisor telling me that the tech concerned in etching the picture of the processors in query is the equal of an individual standing on the Moon with a laser pointer and hitting the tip of somebody’s outstretched finger at sea stage on Earth.. The machine that does this, in the meantime, is totally huge, and it was working whereas I used to be there.
By now, everybody ought to know the aphorism that the important thing to earning profits throughout a gold rush is to be the one promoting the shovels. It is why Nvidia went from being a profitable however comparatively mid-sized maker of graphics playing cards that solely actually mattered to avid gamers to a world-striding company behemoth with a valuation within the $4T vary virtually in a single day.
They do not make the AI merchandise like ChatGPT; they make the GPUs that energy the AI merchandise., and they also’re getting a reduce of each AI product hitting the market.
However even then, Nvidia would not really make its personal chips. It has to outsource the precise fabrication of its GPUs to a chip foundry and competitors for manufacturing time on probably the most superior course of nodes has been fierce in recent times, and it is solely getting extra intense as AI demand grows.
From what I noticed with Intel 18A, although, chips are already rolling off the strains, and there appears to be greater than sufficient capability to begin absorbing already sky-high demand in addition to room within the facility to broaden manufacturing even additional if demand warrants it. And given that every one these chips are manufactured within the US, they will not be topic to the sorts of tariffs that would snap again on TSMC’s or Samsung’s chips at a second’s discover, probably driving up prices for the tip merchandise they energy.
In the end, Intel Foundry’s 18A course of node appears to be like like an enormous win for Intel, even when nothing else adjustments, and if issues do change, Intel’s place as a US-based fab may give it decisive benefits over its abroad rivals.
As for the AI bubble we’re at the moment in, it can pop someday, for positive, and quite a lot of that AI demand will dry up. However the Dot Com bubble nonetheless produced winners like Amazon and Cisco, as a result of these corporations produced precise merchandise and supplied precise, helpful providers.
So superior semiconductors aren’t going to be in much less demand after the AI bubble pops, there are many prospects from authorities businesses to massive enterprise who will want the quickest chips potential, and so the present AI bubble is prone to be the on-ramp to sustainability that Intel Foundry wants proper now, but it surely’s success is not tied to that bubble the way in which OpenAI’s is.
In the meantime, none of that is even factoring within the chance that Intel may even have created probably the most superior course of node know-how on the earth, whereas additionally locking on this place for not less than half a decade, if not longer, one thing that’s going to attract in enterprise by itself no matter different components.
All of that is actual cash, massive cash, and Gelsinger’s guess on Foundry appears to be like prefer it’s about to pay large dividends for Intel within the years forward.
Will Apple, AMD, and Nvidia take a chance on Intel 18A?
Now the only remaining question is whether Apple, AMD, and Nvidia will get on board and use Intel Foundry’s services for their chips, and frankly, it’s not even really a question at this point. Of course they will.
They may not like it, but there is only so much advanced process node capacity in the world, and the only other two foundries capable of sub-3nm production are TSMC and Samsung.
TSMC’s most advanced 2nm fab, which will likely hit production in the second half of 2026, is on the island of Taiwan, and TSMC has said it plans to bring it to the US at some point in 2026 or later, but that’s very questionable at this point. So if Intel’s chips are in fact more advanced than a TSMC node that hasn’t even hit production yet, even if TSMC builds 2nm in the US, it will still lag behind the chips Intel is making right now.
Taiwan, meanwhile, may or may not be a territory of mainland China, depending on who you ask in the US government. China, alternatively, will completely inform you that Taiwan is its territory, and the Chinese language authorities has not dominated out utilizing navy motion to deliver Taiwan beneath its direct management. The opportunity of a sudden disruption within the chip provide popping out of Taiwan is not a fantastical thought, particularly given how hostile the US has been to China’s know-how sector in recent times, and the promise of TSMC producing chips within the US to fulfill demand is unlikely to develop the way in which Intel’s critics hope.
In the meantime, the opposite main foundry, Samsung, is in South Korea, a nation nonetheless technically at battle with North Korea, a nuclear-armed nation led by an authoritarian ruling household that many would characterize as diplomatically unstable and which repeatedly threatens its neighbor to the south with a resumption of full-scale war. In the event you’re in search of a secure provider of superior semiconductors in an unsure world, properly, placing all of your chips on Samsung if you cannot depend on TSMC Taiwan would not appear like an awesome guess.
The prospect of armed battle breaking out in both of those locations would not look doubtless, however this stuff by no means look doubtless till they occur, and the danger for tech corporations relying solely on TSMC or Samsung may flip existential in a single day. Intel 18A carries none of that potential danger, and if Panther Lake, Nova Lake, and Clearwater Forest show that Intel 18A is nearly as good as Intel claims, it could be enterprise malpractice to not hedge that danger by contracting with Intel as properly.
What’s extra, demand for these chips is just going up, and each Samsung and TSMC’s crops can solely produce so many chip wafers in a given day. There’s already a provide bottleneck that may’t meet demand, in order that overflow goes to have to maneuver elsewhere, and Intel 18A is the logical second and even third alternative when you actually want TSMC and/or Samsung.
After all, it’s going to be a bitter capsule for AMD and particularly Apple to swallow, given the depth of their relationships and rivalry with Intel through the years. However with the uncertainty of tariffs and provide being what they’re, they may each ultimately contract with Intel for 18A and Intel’s next-gen 14A when that comes on-line later within the decade.
Kicking and screaming, completely, however in the long run, they will not have a alternative within the matter, and Intel will likely be getting paid for each a type of chips, irrespective of whose branding they carry once they hit the market.
I hope Pat Gelsinger is enjoying himself
It’s not very often I sing the praises of wealthy industrialists and business leaders like Pat Gelsinger, but I do make an exception in this case.
Conventional wisdom nowadays would have told Gelsinger to spend those many billions of dollars he invested in Intel Foundry into something like stock buybacks or some other paper-moving financial maneuver to prop up Intel’s stock price to make Wall Street investors happy.
This would have been a terrible move for Intel, though, especially as it is losing more and more market share to more ‘nimble’ rivals who outsourced the actual making of their chips to TSMC. The conventional wisdom in this case was a recipe for Intel’s gradual decline into irrelevance while stripping the company bare to sell the copper wire out of its metaphorical (and possibly literal) walls.
It wasn’t an easy call for a CEO to turn around and invest an ungodly sum of money in upfront costs (about $30B+ in total) to build out a world-class fab plant with Intel 18A, knowing that the return on that investment would only begin after several years. Gelsinger did just that, though, and unfortunately, he got forced out of the company just before the harvest was due.
I can’t tell you how well the new Intel Core Ultra series 3 chips will end up selling in the end, but I can say that from what I’ve seen, these are damn good chips. Better than an Apple M5? The jury’s still out, at least until we get both of them in hand to try out ourselves. What matters, though, is that regardless of whether they’re the best, second, or third-best chips on the market, they are going to be very competitive, and they were built in-house, and that same process technology is up for sale for anyone to use.
The same process technology behind the Intel Core Ultra series 3 might end up making the Apple M6 a substantially better chip than what we’re set to get from the M5, which is reportedly a 3nm TSMC chip, or even powering the Nvidia GeForce RTX 60-series cards (if those ever become a thing) or Nvidia Rubin datacenter AI chips. Whether Intel’s chips outsell everyone else isn’t really the point. If you’re making everyone else’s chips and getting a cut of every sale, does it matter that they’re outselling your own in-house product? You’re still making bank regardless.
As far back as March 2025, Nvidia was reportedly running several test samples on Intel 18A to gauge its performance, just for Nvidia to take a position $5B into Intel simply final month. Neither Nvidia nor Intel would verify or deny Nvidia planning to make use of the brand new node for future merchandise, however the writing is type of on the wall right here. Hell, even AMD is in talks with Intel about fabbing their chips on 18A. What a world.
For all this, Intel has former CEO Gelsinger to thank. Whether or not they do or not would not actually matter, however I hope different business leaders take some inspiration from what Intel is about to do and understand that investing in innovation is value the associated fee, irrespective of how a lot it spooks the fits in accounting.
I additionally hope that Gelsinger is sitting on a seaside someplace with a cool cocktail with an umbrella, having fun with the truth that everybody goes to must admit that he was proper all alongside.
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