IT Home News of November 1st: According to a report by Tom's Hardware yesterday, despite the shrinking consumer-grade PC market, Intel is confident that the demand from the AI industry will offset the decline in the client market.
To this end, Intel is reallocationing some of its production capacity from the CPU client site to the CPU data center, expanding the Fab facility in Ireland by 24% to produce more Xeon chips, starting the equipment installation at the Fab site in Arizona, USA, ahead of schedule, and committing to producing 18A chips. At the same time, Intel will also expand its advanced packaging capabilities in New Mexico and Malaysia.
Intel CEO Chen Liwu stated during the company's financial report conference call: 'The industry is still experiencing one of the most severe supply shortages in history, which is mainly driven by the unprecedented demand for superintelligence. Against this backdrop, I am satisfied with our progress in increasing server supply in the third quarter. I am aware that we will have to face the ongoing challenges of server demand in the coming quarters.'
The company's data centers, along with its artificial intelligence (DCAI) business, generated $7.3 billion ($IT note: current exchange rate is approximately 48.688 billion RMB) in revenue in the third quarter of 2026, representing a 17% quarter-on-quarter increase and nearly 80% year-on-year growth. Intel expects that as AI infrastructure operators deploy more CPU dense intelligent agents and inference workloads, the demand for data centers (CPU) will remain strong throughout 2027-2028.
To meet the demand for Xeon CPU in the coming years, one of Intel's top priorities is to increase the production of Xeon 6 “Granite Rapids” processors, which are manufactured using Intel 3 process technology. The company has recently begun to expand the capacity of its Fab 24 manufacturing complex near Leixlip, Ireland, but this capacity will not be put into operation until the end of 2027.
In order to further increase the production capacity of Intel 3, Intel plans to transfer some manufacturing resources from its Oregon factory from Intel 18A to Intel 3. These production lines were originally used for manufacturing Panther Lake desktop processors, but due to the weakened demand for PC, Intel will prioritize the production of data center products, which have higher demand. The company expects that the newly added Intel 3 production capacity in Oregon will be put into production in the second half of 2027.
Intel is also accelerating the expansion of its cutting-edge manufacturing operations in Arizona. The company is speeding up the production of Fab 52 of Intel 18A, and is rapidly installing equipment at the adjacent Fab 62, which will become Intel's second mass-production facility for 18A, 18A-P, and derivative process technologies.
