Intel has sold every Wildcat Lake chip it can make. The budget laptop processor is the one bright spot in a PC business that the company expects to shrink sharply in the coming months.
The news came out of Intel’s third-quarter results on 29 October. Chief financial officer Dave Zinsner said Wildcat Lake, built on the Intel 18A process, grew its unit volume by roughly 70% from the previous quarter and still could not meet orders. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said demand for the chip is outstripping supply.
The rest of the PC picture is weaker. Intel’s earnings release puts revenue from its client and physical AI group at $8.1 billion, down 5% from a year earlier. Total revenue was $16.5 billion, up 21%, carried by the data centre and AI unit, which grew 78% to $7.3 billion.
A PC market that turned in the second half
On the earnings call, Zinsner said the PC market held up in the first half of 2026 and then weakened. Intel now expects PC units for the full year to fall about 12%, with the second half down more than 20%.
Tan pointed to what he called an unprecedented memory crunch. Laptop makers are paying far more for RAM, and buyers are putting off purchases. For the fourth quarter, Intel expects client revenue to drop by more than 20% from the third, and total revenue of $15.0 billion to $16.0 billion.
Tan said the current conditions should last until memory supply and prices begin to settle. We covered the same squeeze from the supplier side when SK hynix said memory would stay tight until 2030.
What a sold-out budget chip means for buyers
Wildcat Lake is aimed at affordable laptops. The figures suggest that cheap machines with the new chip are likely to be scarce while Intel is held back by supply, and that rising memory costs are hitting every price tier.
Intel also said demand for its data centre products continues to exceed what it can supply, and that customers are asking for long-term agreements to lock in processors. Intel shares fell sharply in after-hours trading on the weak fourth-quarter outlook.
Via: The Verge
