Two years late, Intel officially launches new Xeon server processors

Intel Corporation officially launched the fourth-generation Xeon server processor code-named Sapphire Rapids on the 11th. This product will be the key to today's hottest computing market.

Intel said the new Xeon processors are used in cloud-computing systems run by Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Amazon.com Inc.'s AWS, and will be sold through machines from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell Inc.

In fact, during the development process of Sapphire Rapids in May last year, many problems that may lead to major technical deficiencies were discovered, and Intel had to postpone the launch. From mid-2022 to today, it has been delayed for nearly two years. For Intel, new products are an opportunity to stop the loss of market share. Sandra Rivera, head of Intel's data center and artificial intelligence department, said that the debut of Sapphire Rapids is the first step in rebuilding confidence for Intel to lead the computer industry again.

Intel's data center unit, usually a high contributor to profits, has stagnated in recent years. Intel's Q3 sales fell 27% to $4.2 billion last year, compared with a 45% increase in AMD's data center revenue over the same period.

Intel's Xeon series used to have a market share of more than 99%, but was eroded by competitors such as AMD. Intel's own production technology problems and delays in the launch of new chips made its competitiveness even worse. However, according to Mercury Research data, competition between the two companies' product differences helped AMD grab 3.6 percentage points of the server market share, but Intel still retained 83%.