Intel Delays Its Monster Server CPU

Intel (INTC -2.90%) made significant progress last year in its server central processing unit (CPU) business. The company has been losing market share to AMD for years, partly because it was stuck on its aging Intel 7 manufacturing process. Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids, which both launched in 2023, struggled to keep up with AMD's server CPUs and featured maximum core counts well below the competition.

In 2024, Intel rolled out two new families of server CPUs. The company split its server CPU lineup in two, with Sierra Forest packing power-sipping efficiency cores designed for cloud workloads and Granite Rapids featuring powerful cores meant to tackle the most compute-intensive applications. Sierra Forest offered as many as 144 cores on a single chip, while Granite Rapids maxed out at 128 cores. For perspective, Emerald Rapids went up to only 64 cores.

Both Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids are built on the Intel 3 process. Intel 3 still isn't on par with the most advanced processes offered by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), but it's a massive leap forward compared to Intel 7. While Intel certainly didn't leapfrog AMD with either product line, the company made up a lot of ground in terms of performance and efficiency.

Pushing back Clearwater Forest

The successor to Sierra Forest will be Clearwater Forest. The Forest family of server CPUs is critical for Intel as it battles AMD's efficiency-focused models and the ongoing incursion of Arm-based CPUs into the data center. For cloud computing providers, there's a major cost benefit to packing as many CPU cores as possible into the smallest footprint.

Clearwater Forest was originally expected to launch this year, but that's no longer the case. During the fourth-quarter earnings call, the company disclosed that Clearwater Forest was being pushed back to the first half of 2026.

Clearwater Forest will be built on the upcoming Intel 18A process, which is expected to bring Intel back to parity with TSMC. The good news is that Intel 18A is progressing as expected. The bad news is that complicated packaging requirements are causing issues for Clearwater Forest.

With Clearwater Forest no longer a 2025 product, Intel will be banking on Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids to stabilize its market share. "This year is all about improving Xeon's competitive position as we fight harder to close the gap to competition. The ramp of Granite Rapids has been a good first step," said interim co-CEO Michelle Holthaus during the fourth-quarter earnings call.

Clearwater Forest has the potential to be a big winner for Intel. The Intel 18A process features a new transistor design and backside power delivery for improved efficiency and performance, giving the company a potential edge over AMD's products. Clearwater Forest will also feature "Local Cache," which puts ultra-fast cache memory close to the CPU cores. Unfortunately for Intel, these innovations won't make it to market until sometime next year.

Stopping the bleeding

While the next major development for Intel's server CPU business is now more than a year away, the company is taking other steps to halt AMD's market share gains. Granite Rapids originally launched with record-high list prices, but Intel has since quietly reduced those list prices by large margins. The value proposition for Granite Rapids is now much stronger on paper, although the actual prices paid by large customers buying in massive volumes are unknown.

Intel's data center segment has been contracting due to a combination of tough competition from AMD and a shift in focus among data center customers toward AI accelerators. Intel's data center revenue declined 3% year over year in the fourth quarter to $3.4 billion, and segment operating profit plunged to just $233 million. The data center segment used to be a lucrative cash cow for Intel, but that's no longer the case.

As Intel works toward launching Clearwater Forest and Diamond Rapids, the successor to Granite Rapids, in 2026, the name of the game this year is stopping its market share losses in the data center. The company has a solid product lineup with Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids and now has attractive pricing as well. While a comeback will take time and the Clearwater Forest delay is disappointing, Intel's server CPU business still appears to be on the right track.