The confirmation settles months of speculation about whether Nova Lake would use Intel 18A or be outsourced to TSMC. TechPowerUp reports that Intel originally planned to dual-source the chip, with TSMC's 2 nm N2 node handling roughly 60 to 70 per cent of production, before supply chain information suggested the compute tile would move in-house. Leaked die shots published earlier in October showed a Nova Lake mobile chip with 18A-P silicon for hub and peripheral tiles alongside a TSMC N2P compute tile, so exactly how the node is deployed across the package may still vary.

18A-P is an upgraded version of Intel's 18A process, which currently powers Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake. Intel says it offers 9 per cent higher speed at equal power, or 18 per cent lower power at equal speed, and works as a drop-in replacement for 18A designs.

The same call brought a significant capacity reshuffle. CFO David Zinsner said Intel is taking 18A wafers, generally earmarked for Panther Lake, offline to make room for Intel 3 production in Oregon, freeing capacity to produce more data centre CPUs, which Tom's Hardware identifies as Granite Rapids. The move reflects a stark split in Intel's business: data centre and AI revenue jumped 78 per cent year over year to $7.3 billion, which Zinsner called the strongest data centre growth in 15 years, while client revenue fell 5 per cent.

The client slump stems largely from the ongoing memory shortage. Zinsner expects the 2026 PC market to shrink about 12 per cent, with the second half down more than 20 per cent, and a further 10 per cent decline in 2027, with no sustained recovery until memory prices normalise. Budget Wildcat Lake chips are a rare bright spot, with units up roughly 70 per cent sequentially but sold out, and Intel says it is also constrained on substrates. Intel's share price fell 23 per cent in after-hours trading.