Intel Faces Challenges as CEO Retools

Intel’s latest earnings call comes at an inconvenient time for the chipmaker. New CEO Lip-Bu Tan hasn’t had time to make major changes to the company, and its flagship product, the vaunted 18A process, is still a ways from reaching customers. Unsurprisingly, Intel reported flat year-over-year revenue of 12.7 billion for the quarter. But, as Tom’s Hardware notes, Intel’s older 7nm chips are in high demand, suggesting that Intel’s new, AI-friendly chips might not be attracting as much as one would expect from new tech.

It's tough to tell at this point whether customers are buying older chips because they’re not finding Intel’s AI processors appealing—or they’re sticking to older products for other reasons. Intel points to pricing as being the main issue.

“What we’re really seeing is much greater demand from our customers for N-1 and N-2 ...