Intel will unveil technical details of its ‘Panther Lake’ laptop chip, built on the 18A process, at a forum in Taipei this week, sources told Reuters, an attempt to reassure partners as AI PCs reshape client roadmaps.
Panther Lake is Intel’s first high-volume product fully using its next-gen 18A process and is aimed at high-end laptops.
Last week, Intel held hours-long technical briefings and Arizona factory tours for analysts, detailing graphics and CPU cores, the media engine, and a redesigned AI engine, with efficiency and performance cores reworked for 18A.
Intel executives have said Panther Lake will be available early in 2026. The new chips target ~30% lower energy use versus the prior generation and up to ~50% better graphics/CPU throughput in some scenarios, a source told Reuters.
The briefings underscore Panther Lake’s stakes for Intel, which has struggled to manufacture cutting-edge chips; in July it posted a $2.9B Q2 loss and warned it could pause work on the future 14A node without an anchor customer.
Industry observers will scrutinize the technical specifications for signs Intel can compete with Apple’s M-series chips and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X processors. The PC chip market has grown increasingly competitive as AI features drive new hardware requirements.
