Intel has announced the company’s “AI Everywhere” event, where it’ll unveil the company’s long-awaited Intel Core Ultra (Meteor Lake) and 5th Generation Xeon (Emeralds Rapids) processors. The chipmaker has scheduled the live keynote for December 14 at 10 a.m. EST (7 a.m. PST).
As the event name suggests, the central theme will be AI, where Intel will present new chips that will accelerate AI workloads across different markets. Meteor Lake will be the first generation of Intel processors to take on the new Core Ultra branding, a radical transformation after using the “Core i” terminology for 15 years.
Despite early rumors, Meteor Lake will exclusively remain in the mobile space, akin to the situation with Intel’s 11th Generation Tiger Lake processors. We’ll see Meteor Lake in a desktop form factor, just not the conventional socketed way. Instead, Meteor Lake comes fused to the motherboard as BGA (ball grid array) packages in AIOs and small form-factor devices like NUCs. Expect a similar implementation to the Tiger Lake B-series SKUs.
The other dish on Intel’s menu is the 5th Generation Xeon Emerald Rapids processors that will replace the current lineup of 4th Generation Xeon Sapphire Rapids chips. Sapphire Rapids is the data center equivalent of Intel’s Alder Lake processors, wielding Golden Cove cores. Sapphire Rapids is a generation behind the current Raptor Lake parts that have progressed to the Raptor Cove cores. With Emerald Rapids, Intel will bring its server chips up to speed with Raptor Lake.
Intel’s Meteor Lake and Emerald Rapids processors won’t have an easy route ahead. AMD is preparing new Ryzen 8000 (Strix Point) and EPYC Turin chips to battle with Meteor Lake and Emerald Rapids, respectively. As usual, it’ll be an exciting end of year for the processor market.
