Intel Panther Lake: AI performance doubled, Clearwater in production

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced during the Q4 2024 earnings call that the Core Ultra platform will be expanded later this year to include new families such as Lunar Lake & Arrow Lake. This will potentially increase AI performance by 3x. In 2025, the Core Ultra series will see a further 2x performance boost with the introduction of Panther Lake CPUs, which will serve as a key client CPU platform for desktops and notebooks.

The Core Ultra platform delivers leadership AI performance today with our next-generation platforms launching later this year, Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake tripling our AI performance. In 2025 with Panther Lake, we will grow AI performance up to an additional 2x.

Pat Gelsinger – Intel CEO (Q4 2023 Earnings Call)

Pat also mentioned the availability of the 18A processor node, which will replace the 20A node of Intel’s Arrow Lake client. Intel also plans to introduce three Granite Rapids / Sierra Forest Xeon CPUs in the second half of 2024. So this year will be a very busy “launch year” for Intel, as they have announced the completion of the Clearwater Forest CPUs, which will be based on the next-generation E-core architecture called Darkmont. The chips will target the cloud data center segment with 288 cores.

We are first in the industry to have incorporated both gate-all-around and backside power delivery in a single process node, the latter unexpected two years ahead of our competition. Arrow Lake, our lead Intel 20A vehicle will launch this year. Intel 18A is expected to achieve manufacturing readiness in second half ’24, completing our five nodes in four year journey and bringing us back to process leadership. I am pleased to say that Clearwater Forest, our first Intel 18A part for servers has already gone into fab and Panther Lake for clients will be heading into Fab shortly.

But with respect to the manufacturing, I’ll just say, hey, we look at this every single day and we’re scrutinizing carefully our progress on 18A. And obviously the great news that we just described those Clearwater Forest taping out, that gives us a lot of confidence that 18A is healthy. That’s a major product for us. Panther Lake following that shortly.

Pat Gelsinger – Intel CEO (Q4 2023 Earnings Call)

After Clearwater Forest, Intel’s Panther Lake CPUs are also entering the production lines, but they are not expected to be available at retail until 2025. The Panther Lake CPUs are expected to use Cougar Cove P cores and utilize the next-generation GPU architecture, codenamed Celestial. Each CPU will feature a cross-generational improvement over the previous one, both in terms of core, graphics and efficiency capabilities.

Intel has also shed light on its AI accelerators, with Gaudi 3 set to launch this year, bringing a 4x performance boost and a doubling of network bandwidth. At the same time, work continues on the next-generation GPU, Falcon Shores.

We’re building on this momentum with Gaudi 3, which is on track to launch this year and is expected to deliver performance leadership with 4x the processing power and double the networking bandwidth for greater scale out performance. Gaudi 3 is now in the lab, powered on and showing great health and performance and Falcon Shores is also well underway.

Pat Gelsinger – Intel CEO (Q4 2023 Earnings Call)

On February 21, Intel will host its livestream for IFS Direct Connect 2024, where you can eagerly await more information on their process roadmap and related products.

Source: Seeking Alpha