The memory crisis is biting hard and prices are still worsening for memory and storage, which means Intel is having a tougher time selling computer chips to the likes of you and me. CEO Tan said in the company's latest earnings call that "the next few quarters will be challenging for the PC market." So, rather than sit on Panther Lake chips it can't sell, the company says it's looking to shift some of that 18A capacity to data center chips instead.

Answering a question about whether the company would be reallocating wafers to data center chips in Intel's earnings call (transcript via Seeking Alpha), CFO David Zinsner replied: "The answer is yes. What we're taking offline to put Intel 3 into Oregon is 18A wafers, which we're generally going to build Panther Lake products. So we see the opportunity with some of that capacity freed up to go produce more data center wafers."

There are two consumer chip families on the 18A node right now: Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake. For corporate customers, it's Clearwater Forest.

While Panther Lake has just successfully ramped onto 18A, it's the more recent budget offerings of Wildcat Lake that are reportedly selling strongest.

"While the next few quarters will be challenging for the PC market, our roadmap continues to strengthen and our long-term outlook remains positive," Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said. "We have successfully ramped Panther Lake on Intel 18A and demand for the Wildcat Lake is outstripping supply."

Zinsner later says something similar: "Wildcat Lake, our cost-optimized Intel 18A client CPU increased units by approximately 70% sequentially and is sold out."

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