It feels a little bit early to start talking about CES, but here we are: Intel will be debuting its Core Ultra 300 chips (codenamed Panther Lake) next year.
The Panther Lake chips will be used mostly in “high-end laptops” as well as “gaming devices and edge solutions” according to Engadget. The headline change is a shift to the 18A manufacturing process in Arizona, which Intel says will lift performance, battery life, and on-device AI.
Intel says you’ll see a 50% lift in processing performance versus previous generations, a 30% bump to density, and a 15% gain in performance per watt. On the graphics front, the integrated Arc GPU is said to deliver around 50% more compared to the previous generation thanks to up 12 GPU cores on higher-end versions.
On paper, this means Panther Lake should take the best bits of both Lunar and Arrow Lake. Lunar leaned into efficiency, while Arrow focused on performance.
If the 18A process delivers the efficiency Intel promises, it could well be a gamechanger for the development of handhelds and ultrabooks, especially when it comes down to improved AI processing – something Intel so desperately needs to re-establish itself as a top-tier chip designer and manufacturer.
Now we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out. We’ll see the first of the chips in the wild in Q1 2026.
