Financial performance continues to be a pain point, even under the leadership of CEO Lip-Bu Tan. The company just reported earnings for Q2 2025, and they make for unsurprisingly painful reading. These results have prompted comments from Tan that indicate the brand’s approach to the future of chip production could look very different indeed.
Speaking during the Intel Q2 2025 earnings call, Tan states: “I do not subscribe to the belief that if you build it, they will come.” He’s referring to the company’s focus on capacity and process advancement under previous CEO Pat Gelsinger, which aimed to make Team Blue the number two global foundry business by 2030, behind TSMC.
Tan does not follow Gelsinger’s vision, damningly claiming earlier this month that “[Intel is] not in the top 10 semiconductor companies.” It should come as no surprise then that the CEO is pushing for a more cautious, frugal approach to company direction and financials.
Demand must drive direction, with Intel following customer needs instead of attempting to anticipate them. This could have dire consequences for 14A and beyond, with Tan admitting that such nodes risk shuttering without significant investment from external customers.
Putting rumours of a speedy shift from 18A to 14A to rest, Tan explains that the former node will form the basis of Intel production for at least the next three generations of Intel client and server products. Here’s hoping doing so doesn’t see a repeat of the stagnation 14nm(+++) gave us, circa 5th-11th Gen Core processors.
The first client market fruits from 18A should materialise in 2026, through Panther Lake and Nova Lake. It’s unclear how much these architectures Intel will build internally, as the company’s previous two generations (Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake) rely heavily on co-operation with TSMC.
Staring down a future where Intel doesn’t continue to compete with the likes of TSMC and Samsung in the foundry space does sadden a part of me. However, if it means the survival of the company and staves off further reductions in head count, then I’d sooner put the future of people rather than processors first.
For further news on processors and more, hit up Google News and make sure you’re following Club386 so you stay in the know.
