Intel boss confirms Panther Lake is on track for mid-2025 release date – with some bold claims
Intel has confirmed that the upcoming 18A process Panther Lake CPU generation is on track for a mid-2025 release date.
As confirmed in that of the company Quarterly results first quarter 2024Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger reconfirmed that the new upcoming 18A chipset line is currently being manufactured. That puts the processors on track to hit the market in a year.
Gelsinger said in the revenue calling: “The Core Ultra platform delivers industry-leading AI performance today, with our next generation platforms launching later this year, while Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake will triple our AI performance.” We continue with bold claims about its future technology: “By 2025, with Panther Lake, we will increase AI performance by up to an additional 2x.”
It is the culmination of what Team Blue has described as its ‘Execution Engine’ with five new process nodes in production over four years. It started with the Intel 7 process, codenamed Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids (Xeon) to Intel 4’s Meteor Lake (Ultra), and the upcoming Intel 20A Arrow Lake process.
Intel’s roadmap is still vague, but it’s definitely making progress…
Gelsinger’s statement aligns with what we know from the current Arrow Lake development, which is reportedly slated to debut in early 2025. That positions the next generation with 18A process to debut a few months later. It’s an ambitious plan, and should the trajectory continue, AI computing could evolve at speeds we haven’t seen yet.
It is clear from the current roadmap that Panther Lake will continue this level of iteration as the company transitions from the hybrid architecture to a disaggregated architecture as AI computing takes on a larger role. Essentially, this means it’s a third-generation Intel Core Ultra series, following in the footsteps of Ultra 100 (Meteor Lake), Ultra 200 (Arrow Lake), and Lunar Lake (200V).
This is a release strategy we’ve seen happen with the hybrid architecture with LGA 1700, starting with Alder Lake in 2021, then Raptor Lake a year later, and a revamped Raptor Lake released last year to tide consumers over until LGA 1851 was ready . which we are still waiting for.
However, this isn’t the first time Intel has doubled down on developments on its roadmap. In September, Gelsinger made promises that Arrow Lake would hit before 2024 is over, but since then we’ve heard conflicting information that this could happen later. With Panther Lake in production, the CPU generation should be expected around this time next year, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it comes out later than expected.
…while Team Blue meanwhile goes all-in on AI
It’s no secret that the implementation of AI computing has ushered in a new era for Team Blue, with the company switching from its winning formula with the Hyrbid Architecture and introducing Disaggregated.
Panther Lake seems to be the culmination of three generations of work in a short period of time as the NPU becomes more and more advanced, whether it’s worth it or not remains to be seen.