systems
Chipzilla changes PC biz name to reflect belief edge and robots could be as valuable one day
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has acknowledged that the semiconductor giant must catch up to rivals AMD and Arm, and said it now assumes edge AI and robotics will be a business as big as PCs.Tan made those remarks during Intel’s Q2 earnings call, which saw the company report $16.1 billion revenue – a 25 percent year-on-year increase.“Q2 was another quarter of solid execution,” the CEO said. “Revenue, gross margin, and earnings per share were above our guidance. This marks the seventh consecutive quarter of exceeding our financial expectations.” Yet it didn’t deliver a profit as Intel reported a GAAP loss of $11 billion (and a non-GAAP loss of $2.2 billion).
Tan remained optimistic about Intel’s prospects, thanks to the AI boom spurring demand for many of its products, and its foundry service. “Our core server CPU franchise is growing faster than ever,” the CEO said, before observing the Xeon 6 range “continues to be one of the fastest-ramping products in Intel's history.”
That may be the case, but Intel’s hyperscale customers have designed their own Arm-powered CPUs and are deploying so many that analyst firm IDC recently found non-x86 servers now account for almost half of all sales. Intel’s great rival, AMD, has grown its market share to a third of the x86 server market.During the earnings call, Morgan Stanley analyst Joe Moore asked Tan how he plans to regain market share.Tan pointed to Intel’s forthcoming Clearwater Forest, Diamond Rapids, and Coral Rapids processors as evidence the company is creating products that can compete with anyone.
