Intel plans to launch laptops equipped with Panther Lake on a large scale in Q1 2026

HARDWARE NEWS manhkbrady - 17-Mar-2025, 1:30 pm

Videocardz has published an Intel PPT slide revealing that the Panther Lake processor, built on the Intel 18A process, will officially launch in Q1 2026. Some may wonder why Intel previously promoted Panther Lake as “launching in 2025,” yet the PPT slide intentionally states the following year instead.

The reason is actually quite simple. Panther Lake will begin its "EEP" (Early Enablement Program) this year, and some major manufacturers will also receive early supplies to release corresponding AIPC products. However, Intel cannot guarantee large-scale shipments within this year, which aligns with previous media reports.

According to news estimate intel 18A Panther Lake will HVM in September and will launch in October , start EEP (Early Enablement Program) limit supply to OEM , will be available on the market Q1 2026 (actually Jan) . pic.twitter.com/9rbV9cdgjO
— meng (@meng59739449) March 14, 2025

John Pitzer, Intel’s Vice President of Investor Relations, stated earlier this month that the plan to launch Panther Lake—the next-generation client processor—in the second half of this year remains unchanged. At the same time, the current yield rate of Panther Lake is at a normal level (contrary to earlier claims by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who suggested that the initial yield rate was only around 20%-30%).

In other words, Intel will follow the same strategy as with the previous two generations, Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake: announcing the processor in the second half of the prior year, but ramping up mass production in the following year. Panther Lake is expected to start improving the company’s overall profitability from 2026.

Although Panther Lake shares some similarities with Lunar Lake, there is no direct successor relationship between them. Intel has confirmed that Lunar Lake is a one-off product, and currently, neither the Panther Lake nor Nova Lake series has plans to adopt the MoP memory packaging design.

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