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Intel unveils new AI data center chip “Crescent Island” to relaunch AI ambitions

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Intel has announced plans to launch a new artificial intelligence chip for data centers next year, marking a renewed effort to reclaim ground in the booming AI hardware market dominated by Nvidia and AMD.

The new GPU, named Crescent Island, will prioritize energy efficiency and be optimized for AI inference workloads, Intel Chief Technology Officer Sachin Katti said at the Open Compute Summit on Tuesday. “It emphasizes our focus on inference, optimized for AI, and for delivering the best performance per dollar,” Katti said.

The announcement represents Intel’s latest bid to reenter the AI race after CEO Lip-Bu Tan pledged to restart the company’s stalled AI programs, including the Gaudi and Falcon Shores lines. Despite trailing competitors, Intel hopes to capture a meaningful share of the rapidly expanding data center market fueled by generative AI adoption since ChatGPT’s 2022 debut.

Crescent Island will feature 160 gigabytes of memory, though slower than the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AMD and Nvidia’s top-tier AI chips. The chip will be based on Intel’s existing consumer GPU architecture, underscoring the company’s modular approach that allows customers to mix and match chips from multiple vendors.

Intel also committed to releasing new data center AI chips annually, matching the cadence of rivals AMD, Nvidia, and major cloud providers developing their own silicon.

The move follows Nvidia’s $5 billion investment in Intel, which gave it a 4% stake and launched a partnership to co-develop future AI and PC chips. Katti said the collaboration aims to ensure Intel CPUs remain integrated into AI systems worldwide as the company seeks to position itself as an indispensable player in next-generation computing.

Oracle to deploy AMD’s MI450 AI chips in major cloud expansion

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Oracle announced plans to integrate Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD) upcoming MI450 artificial intelligence chips into its cloud infrastructure, with deployment scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2026. The companies said the initial rollout will include 50,000 processors, with further expansion expected through 2027 and beyond.

The partnership marks a major win for AMD, securing another top-tier client for its next-generation AI chips, while giving Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) a competitive boost in the global race to provide compute power for AI model training and deployment. “Demand for large-scale AI capacity is accelerating as next-generation AI models outgrow the limits of current clusters,” the companies said in a joint statement.

The announcement comes as demand for AI hardware surges amid the explosion of applications like ChatGPT. AMD’s shares rose over 3% in premarket trading, defying broader market weakness driven by renewed U.S.-China trade tensions, while Oracle’s stock slipped about 1%.

AMD recently unveiled a multi-year deal with OpenAI to supply the same MI450 chips, in an agreement that gives the ChatGPT developer an option to acquire up to 10% of AMD. The companies are also collaborating on a 1-gigawatt AI data facility based on the chip architecture.

The new AI superclusters at Oracle will use AMD’s “Helios” rack design, a fully integrated system combining GPUs and CPUs, mirroring Nvidia’s own rack-scale solutions. The deal underscores AMD’s ambition to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the high-performance AI hardware market.

Intel unveils Panther Lake, first chip built on next-gen 18A process

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Intel has revealed new details of Panther Lake, its upcoming laptop processor and the first to be manufactured using the company’s next-generation 18A technology. The chip, aimed at AI-enabled premium PCs, marks a critical milestone in Intel’s bid to reclaim leadership in semiconductor manufacturing from AMD and TSMC.

According to Intel, Panther Lake’s integrated graphics and CPU deliver 50% faster performance than the current Lunar Lake line, which was largely produced by Taiwan’s TSMC. The new 18A process introduces a redesigned transistor structure and a more efficient power delivery system, allowing higher performance at lower energy costs.

The chip uses a system-on-chip architecture, combining CPU and GPU components into a single circuit to boost efficiency. Production ramps up this year, with first shipments expected by late 2025 and broad availability from January 2026.

Industry experts see Panther Lake as a major credibility test for Intel’s comeback strategy. “It’s a confirmation of Intel’s continued advancements in chip manufacturing,” said Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at Technalysis Research.

New CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took over amid leadership turmoil, has scaled back expansion plans while focusing on core innovation. Intel’s Arizona Fab 52 facility is now fully operational and will also produce the company’s Clearwater Forest server chips, slated for release in 2026.

As Intel seeks to reassert itself in both the PC and AI data center markets, Panther Lake’s success will be a key signal to investors that its long-promised manufacturing turnaround is finally taking shape.