Intel announced on May 20th that the next generation processor Lunar Lake series is expected to be officially shipped in the third quarter, with an NPU computing power of up to 45 TOPS. This generation of processors is bundled with 16GB and 32GB of memory, causing dissatisfaction in the personal computer (PC) supply chain.
It is expected that about 20 manufacturers will launch a total of 80 models when Intel's next generation Lunar Lake is launched. The industry predicts that the cumulative shipment of Intel Metro Lake and Lunar Lake processors in 2024 will reach 40 million units. However, in pursuit of low energy consumption, Lunar Lake integrates the LPDDR5X memory chip and CPU into a single package. Therefore, laptop OEMs will not purchase memory modules separately, limiting operating space and causing related manufacturers to lose this business.
Microsoft announced on May 20th that its AI PC, equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon X series chips, has a computing power of up to 45 TOPS and meets the latest Copilot+PC standards. The industry stated that in order to prevent market loss, Intel made a rare announcement on May 20th that the next generation Lunar Lake processor will have a total computing power of 100 TOPS, with NPU computing power exceeding 45 TOPS, which also meets Microsoft's Copilot+PC standards.
It is reported that Intel's next-generation high-end Core Ultra 9 processor will be bundled with 32GB of memory, while Ultra 5 and Ultra 7 will have 16GB and 32GB of memory versions.
The PC supply chain stated that it previously had long-term contracts with storage module suppliers, taking into account annual storage product demand. Nowadays, Intel's single platform bundled memory sales will change the ecosystem. Secondly, in the past, brand PC manufacturers provided a variety of combinations for their own products, with CPU+memory+solid-state drives having rich specifications. Now that Intel bundles memory sales, it also loses flexibility for manufacturers.
Intel's competitor AMD's next-generation processor, codenamed Strix Point, is expected to be launched in the fourth quarter with a computing power of over 50 TOPS. Another APU, codenamed Strix Halo, will be launched around the end of the year with a computing power of over 60 TOPS.
