When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Why Intel's Panther Lake reveal gave me existential dread I want desktop PCs and PC building to thrive. Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? I never thought I'd think on laptops with envy. But here I am, writing these words.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Intel's new Panther Lake CPU: 11 essential facts you should know If you just need the basics about Intel's new laptop CPU, you've come to the right place. Panther Lake, the next generation of Intel's Core Ultra series of laptop processors, is nearly here. But what is it, exactly? Intel spent several days explaining the fine details of Panther Lake to journalists at a recent press event, including its new compute cores, graphics cores, NPU AI, and wireless.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Panther Lake unveiled: A deep dive into Intel's next-gen laptop CPU Take the low power of Lunar Lake, combine it with the performance of Arrow Lake, and you've got Panther Lake, Intel says. Intel's next-generation mobile processor, "Panther Lake," builds incrementally on the excellent "Lunar Lake" chip populating laptops right now. But there's something odd afoot: a "16-core, 12 Xe graphics cores" version that could be Intel's answer to AMD's Ryzen AI Max, complete with multi-frame graphics generation powered by AI. Intel has officially revealed its new Panther Lake architecture, and it gives enthusiasts a lot to chew on: a return to the performance (P-cores), efficiency (E-cores), and low-power efficiency (LP E-cores) cores of Intel's first Core Ultra chip, Meteor Lake. Intel has returned with a fifth-generation NPU capable of 50 TOPS and an image processing unit (IPU) that actually uses AI for some functions. Intel's "Xe3" GPU is worth some discussion all by itself, with its awkward branding and powerful multi-frame generation that will potentially elevate frame rates three or four times what they were before. Can Panther Lake address mainstream laptops, handheld PCs, and this new breed of "AI workstations" AMD's Strix Halo is aiming for? Intel's confidence in its 18A manufacturing process may be a bit overblown, however, as several portions of Panther Lake are still being manufactured overseas, including the 12Xe version of the new, disaggregated (separate) GPU tile.

The struggling American chipmaker is betting that a new plant and fresh product line will help turn around its fortunes. After four years of construction, Intel said on Thursday that its Fab 52 semiconductor plant in Chandler, Arizona is now turning out its first chips. The company also shared more details about the long-awaited CPUs that it will be producing in the facility using Intel's brand new 18A process technology. The announcement comes just six weeks after the Trump administration acquired a 9.9 percent stake in Intel in exchange for $8.9 billion in stock. The fab opening, while long in the works, is the first major opportunity for the struggling American chip maker to convince the broader tech industry that it can produce some of the world's most advanced chips at scale--and that the White House's investment might pay off.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. If AMD turns to the cloud, does that mean less love for the PC market? In the ongoing war of AI investment, OpenAI has secured itself a new ally: AMD. The chip maker will trade millions of its upcoming Instinct MI450 GPUs for an investment by the AI company, worth up to 10 percent of its stock. The numbers, though, remain vague.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. More TOPS, more cores, more challenges to lead Windows on Arm into a meaningful presence on the PC with the Snapdragon X2 Elite and Extreme. On Wednesday, Qualcomm announced three new Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme processors for PCs, pushing into what it calls'ultra-premium PCs' with a 5GHz CPU and an NPU delivering an industry-leading 80 TOPS. Qualcomm made a name for itself with all-day battery life, but its new "multi-day" battery life received little mention in the context of the X2 Elite chips for Windows on Arm PCs. Now, it's all about speed: the X2 Elite platform delivers 31 percent more performance than the X1 Elite at the same power, or the same performance at 43 percent less power.

What is the H-1B visa programme? The White House Peace Vigil is dismantled - why? Who said what at Charlie Kirk's memorial? Chipmaker Nvidia will invest up to $100bn in OpenAI and provide it with data center chips, a tie-up between two of the highest-profile leaders in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race. The deal, announced on Monday, will see Nvidia start delivering chips as soon as late 2026 and will involve two separate but intertwined transactions, according to a person close to OpenAI. The first $10bn of Nvidia's investment in OpenAI, which was most recently valued at $500bn, will begin when the two companies reach a definitive agreement for OpenAI to purchase Nvidia chips. Nvidia did not respond to immediate requests for clarification about the deal.

Donald Trump Is Saying There's a TikTok Deal. Donald Trump claimed victory on a deal that would put TikTok in the hands of his allies after a call with Xi Jinping. A man walks by a TikTok sign in a shopping mall in Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang province. The United States and China may have agreed on a deal to prevent the social platform TikTok from being banned in the US --if you take US President Donald Trump's word for it. After a long-awaited call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, Trump announced victory on Truth Social: "The call was a very good one, we will be speaking again by phone, appreciate the TikTok approval, and both look forward to meeting at APEC!" Specifics around the shape and scope of the deal remain largely unclear as of Friday afternoon.

This week has been an eventful one for America's public health agency. Two former leaders of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained why they suddenly departed in a Senate hearing. They also described how CDC employees are being instructed to turn their backs on scientific evidence. They painted a picture of a health agency in turmoil--and at risk of harming the people it is meant to serve. And, just hours afterwards, a panel of CDC advisers voted to stop recommending the MMRV vaccine for children under four. This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review's weekly biotech newsletter.