Intel Talks Demand, Supply, Roadmap, and Partner Program in the Year Ahead

Remember the processor shortage that hit Intel and its partners—hard—in 2018, due to unexpectedly high PC demand? Some three years later, it’s still not completely over.

“We understand those shortages cause a lot of stress and a lot of frustration, and we’re doing everything we can to maximize our mix, our output, so that our customers and partners can deliver what they have committed to their shareholders and partners,” said Michelle Johnston Holthaus, executive vice president, chief revenue officer, and general manager of Intel’s Sales, Marketing, and Communications Group, today.

Those capital-intensive efforts have been ongoing for years, in fact, according to Germano, and are beginning to bear fruit. “We’ve grown our capacity by 25%,” he said. We have 300 fabs that are ramping in 10nm in volume, and the factory team is leaning in every day to improve our output.”

The upshot, Intel projects, will be a double-digit increase in CPU shipments this year big enough to keep pace with those increased PC sales the company is so excited about. Unfortunately, however, that still may not be enough to erase PC inventory shortfalls thanks to a whole new class of supply chain headaches. 

“There’s new industry and ecosystem challenges where the rest of the component ecosystem can’t keep up,” Holthaus noted. “You might be able to find a CPU, but you may not be able to find a panel or a battery or some other component to actually be able to finish that kit.” Intel, she and others said today, is laboring to ease that problem through close coordination with its supply chain partners.