Intel CEO Reveals Panther, Lunar, and Arrow Lake to Feature Big AI Performance Improvements

Intel recently had its Q4 2023 earnings call, where CEO Pat Gelsinger spoke on exciting developments coming in the company’s future processor generations, including Panther Lake, Lunar Lake, and Arrow Lake.

Meteor Lake architecture on the latest Core Ultra processors for laptops was released recently. The highlight was the new generation having AI capabilities thanks to the on-board NPU. But this year, in 2024, Intel is expected to release the Lunar Lake & Arrow Lake processor architecture. Then, in 2025, Intel is also going to release Panther Lake.

The aforementioned roadmap is what Intel revealed to us back when it held the Innovation 2023 event. In the recently held Q4 2024 earnings call, here is what Pat said (Source: Seeking Alpha) regarding the current & future processor generations:

“The Core Ultra platform delivers leadership AI performance today with our next-generation platforms launching later this year, Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake tripling our AI performance. In 2025 with Panther Lake, we will grow AI performance up to an additional 2x.” – Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO

Those were a lot of heavy developments in a single sentence! According to this, the upcoming Lunar Lake & Arrow Lake architectures will feature triple the AI performance of what we currently have. In 2025, Panther Lake will grow AI performance by another 2x. Do note that we will probably use PCs that feature these latest processor architectures a long time after Intel announces them.

If the math is right, then next year, we will see a processor from Intel featuring 6 times the AI performance of what we currently have with Core Ultra processors. Overall, Intel is hyperfocused on delivering innovative gains to the Neural Computing Unit (NPU) as part of the entire tech industry’s ever-increasing trend of artificial intelligence.

Apart From AI, I’m Hoping For More

Intel’s hybrid performance architecture has surely gotten better with Core Ultra. A new core type known as “Low Power E-Core” was introduced to work along with P-cores and E-cores. This makes the laptops of today last even longer. The in-built Arc graphics are now pretty featureful, performant enough for gaming, and were another big highlight of the latest Core Ultra chips. We are now even seeing portable gaming handhelds coming with this latest processor.

But, we are yet to see major performance improvements in the CPU department. With Intel’s upcoming Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake, and Panther Lake processors, I’d like to see big improvements to other aspects of the processor as well. AI is important, but I would like to see something outperforming AMD’s Ryzen 9 7945HX3D in CPU-intensive gaming benchmarks.

By ‘AI performance,’ Intel should seek to increase performance across all the AI engines (GPU, NPU, and CPU). But given that the NPU is quite new, we will probably see bigger improvements here.

Leaving the AI improvements in future processors aside, Intel’s Q4 2023 earnings call also revealed some information on the company’s Xeon processors. The CEO mentioned that “we look forward to launching Sierra Forest in first half ’24 followed shortly thereafter by Granite Rapids”.

We recently covered next-generation Xeon processors being spotted in a Linux patch. With this statement from Intel’s CEO, it looks like the company is on track to launch Sierra Forest Xeon processors soon!

What are your thoughts on Intel’s future processor lineup? Let us know in the comments below.