It’s true that at the time we didn’t want to post because after announcing quite a few things and confirming the 18A, the statement made during Intel Vision 2025 a few days ago had us a little confused. Panther Lake was presented as a 2026 product, whereas for a few weeks we had been expecting it to arrive in the second half of 2025. The blues clearly understood that the communication had not been very clear, and we were able to get some clarification.
Panther Lake in 2025 and Nova Lake in 2026
It has been confirmed that the Intel 18A Panther Lake processors remain “on track for 2025”. The reality is that Intel is planning a launch schedule similar to the one we saw for the Lunar Lake range. Launched in the second half of 2024, Lunar Lake became available in much larger quantities earlier this year. As a result, Panther Lake is expected to launch later this year in relatively low volumes, but should be more widely available in early 2026.
Clarification from Kevin O’Buckley – Intel’s Senior Vice President of Foundry Services:
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. As Intel 18A’s first consumer customer, I see the progress Intel Foundry is making in terms of performance and efficiency. I look forward to being in production in the second half of the year, where we will demonstrate the benefits of our advanced design and processing capabilities.
The year 2026 promises to be even more exciting for our customers, with the significant increase in Panther Lake volumes and the launch of our new Nova Lake customer range. Both products will deliver excellent performance across the entire PC stack, with significantly improved costs and margins, strengthening our competitive position and value proposition to our partners and customers.
Panther Lake: strategic for margins and future customers
The launch of Panther Lake is strategic for two reasons. Firstly, it will enable Intel to generate higher margins on its Panther Lake products by moving away from TSMC. Secondly, Panther Lake will serve as a demonstrator and showcase for Intel’s foundry technologies.
