Intel's financial situation seems to be improving, and promising new projects are on the verge of completion.
Is there light at the end of the tunnel for Intel? Once a sure thing on the NASDAQ, the semiconductor giant has been mired in years of technological stagnation, with its main competitors taking market share at every level. Last December, however, brought the first ray of light with the approval of an $8 billion subsidy from the US government. This subsidy is intended to reduce American dependence on Taiwanese semiconductors, and Intel, with its many factories located in the USA, is clearly a good candidate for this type of aid.
Intel
A few days ago, the company published a PDF document presenting its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2024. Let's face it, they're not good, and this Q4-2024 is inferior in every way to Q4-2023, which was already not a great vintage for Intel. On the other hand, the results presented by the company mark a break with the trend observed over the whole of 2024. Indeed, the company's accounts show a clear turnaround, with sales up by a billion dollars to $14.3 billion. More importantly, operating income is back in the black, with a profit of 1.4 billion (compared with a record loss of 2.4 billion in the third quarter). This turnaround is largely due to the improved health of the Intel Foundry division, which is still recording losses, but these have fallen from $5.8 billion in the third quarter to "only" $2.3 billion in the fourth.
Alongside these "improved" accounts, Intel was more aggressive, emphasizing, for example, " a promising future ". Michelle Johnston Holthaus, the Group's interim CEO, said: " For the remainder of the year, we will strengthen our customer roadmap with the launch of Panther Lake, our flagship product on Intel 18A, in the second half of 2025 ". In fact, the second half of the year will mark the start of the Intel 18A production process with the Panther Lake processor range, which should only arrive smoothly in 2025. Michelle Johnston Holthaus describes " an even more exciting 2026, as Panther Lake reaches significant volumes ". 2026 will also be the year of the transition to Intel 14A, a process that should enable Intel to get back into the race with Taiwanese foundry TSMC. Intel 14A will be used on the Nova Lake and Diamond Rapids generations, on which Intel has high hopes. However, we'll have to wait and see when it comes to artificial intelligence computers.
A Gaudi 3 chip © Intel
Intel was supposed to launch the Falcon Shores generation in 2025. Alas, Michelle Johnston Holthaus was very clear: " Many of you heard me temper expectations for Falcon Shores last month. Based on industry feedback, we plan to use Falcon Shores only as an internal test chip without commercializing it. This will support our efforts to develop a rack-scale system-level solution with Jaguar Shores to meet the needs of the IA data center." The Gaudi 3 chips will have to hold their own for many months to come, until Jaguar Shores arrives - in a blur.
