Intel clarifies Panther Lake CPU launch plans – “on track for 2025”
Intel confirms that Panther Lake is “on track” for 2025 launch
At Intel Vision 2025, the company showcased a slot that called its upcoming “Panther Lake” a 2026 product. Today, we have been contacted by Intel to confirm that Intel’s 18A Panther Lake CPUs remain “on track for 2025.”
With Panther Lake, Intel is anticipating a launch schedule similar to that of its Lunar Lake product line. Lunar Lake was launched in the second half of 2024 and became available in much higher volumes at the start of this year. As such, we should expect Panther Lake to launch later this year with relatively few products, but become more broadly available in early 2026.
Below is a comment from Intel’s Products CEO, Michelle Johnson Holtaus, who commented on this earlier this year. Below, she says that Panther Lake “achieves meaningful volumes” in 2026.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we will strengthen our client roadmap with the launch of Panther Lake, our lead product on Intel 18A, in the second half of 2025. As the first volume customer of Intel 18A, I see the progress that Intel Foundry is making on performance and yields. And I look forward to being in production in the second half as we demonstrate the benefits of our world-class design and process technology capabilities.
2026 is even more exciting from a client perspective as Panther Lake achieves meaningful volumes and we introduce our next-generation client family code-named Nova Lake. Both will provide strong performance across the entire PC stack with significantly better cost and margin for us, enhancing our competitive position and reinforcing our value proposition to our partners and customers.
Panther Lake could be a transformative product for Intel
Intel’s Panther Lake product line has the potential to be transformative for the company. For starters, Intel has claimed that it should deliver the “efficiency of Lunar Lake and the performance of Arrow Lake.” If Intel can achieve this, Panther Lake will be an attractive option for performance-focused PC users, especially those who want laptops with a long battery life.
Note that Panther Lake will use Intel’s new 18A lithography node. This moves Intel’s primary CPU dies away from TSMC and back to Intel. This change will allow Intel to generate higher margins on its Panther Lake products. Furthermore, it enables Panther Lake to be a showcase of Intel’s foundry technologies. If Panther Lake’s launch succeeds, it could help secure Intel new foundry partners. That would greatly improve Intel’s financial position.
You can join the discussion on Intel’s confirmation that Panther Lake is a 2025 product on the OC3D Forums.
