Intel recently made a formal announcement: its next-generation Xeon processor series, Diamond Rapids and Clearwater Forest, will officially launch in 2026. This move aims to revitalize the company’s competitiveness in the data center market. In recent years, Intel’s market share in data center processors has been eroded by AMD’s EPYC series, driven by the surging demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing. The introduction of Diamond Rapids and Clearwater Forest could mark Intel’s strategic counterattack in high-performance computing, as it seeks to reclaim market dominance with advanced process technology and innovative architectures.
Diamond Rapids: High-Performance Computing Redefined #
Diamond Rapids is positioned for high-performance computing, featuring Panther Cove-X performance cores (P-Core) and will utilize the new LGA 9324 socket. This socket is approximately five times the size of LGA 1700, supporting extensive core expansion and higher bandwidth memory and I/O configurations. According to industry sources, Diamond Rapids is based on Intel’s 18A process technology (equivalent to 1.8 nanometers), offering significant improvements in transistor density and power efficiency compared to the current mainstream Intel 3 process (used for Granite Rapids). Although the exact core count hasn’t been disclosed, it’s estimated to substantially surpass existing Xeon series, potentially supporting over 100 cores.
Clearwater Forest: Focused on High-Density Computing #
Concurrently, Clearwater Forest focuses on high-density computing, employing Darkmont efficiency cores (E-Core) with a maximum core count of up to 288. This design is optimized for cloud computing and virtualization scenarios, delivering extremely high thread parallelism under limited power consumption. Clearwater Forest is also based on the 18A process and introduces Foveros Direct hybrid bonding technology. This technology enables ultra-low-latency interconnections between chip modules through 3D stacking, enhancing overall performance and power efficiency. This technology has been validated in Intel’s Lunar Lake mobile processors, and its mature application in multi-chip packages ensures the reliability of Clearwater Forest.
Intel’s Strategic Bet on 18A Process and Competitive Landscape #
Intel’s decision to bet on the 18A process reflects its confidence in its in-house foundry capacity. The 18A process not only supports higher transistor density but also optimizes power performance through the RibbonFET (Gate-All-Around) transistor architecture and PowerVia backside power delivery technology. These technological advancements give Diamond Rapids and Clearwater Forest the potential to compete head-to-head with AMD’s EPYC Venice (based on TSMC’s 2nm process) in terms of performance and power efficiency. Market analysts indicate that the 2026 data center processor competition will focus on process technology, core scale, and AI acceleration capabilities, further intensifying the rivalry between Intel and AMD.
Building on Granite Rapids and AI Optimization #
Currently, Intel’s Granite Rapids processors are being deployed in the data center market. As a precursor to Diamond Rapids, its performance lays the foundation for subsequent products. Granite Rapids supports up to 128 cores and 12-channel DDR5 memory, with a peak memory bandwidth of 6400 megabytes per second, making it suitable for high-compute-density scenarios like AI training and inference. Diamond Rapids and Clearwater Forest will inherit and extend these features, such as supporting higher frequency DDR5-7200 memory and PCIe 6.0 interfaces, to meet the demands of next-generation data centers for low latency and high throughput.
Intel’s strategy in the data center market also includes targeted optimization for AI workloads. Diamond Rapids integrates AMX (Advanced Matrix Extensions) units, specifically designed for deep learning and matrix operation acceleration. Clearwater Forest, on the other hand, supports large-scale distributed computing through its high core density, catering to the AI inference and database processing needs of cloud service providers. These features enable Intel to better meet the diverse computing platform requirements of customers like Google Cloud and Amazon AWS.
Software Ecosystem and Future Outlook #
Furthermore, Intel’s investment in its software ecosystem provides crucial support for its hardware products. The continuous updates to the OneAPI development toolkit and the OpenVINO framework lower the barrier for developers to optimize AI and high-performance computing applications on Xeon platforms. Concurrently, Intel is promoting the compatibility of its processors with emerging memory technologies (such as CXL 3.0) to achieve efficient data sharing across devices, which is critical for future data center architectures.
In comparison, AMD’s EPYC Venice is also expected to launch in 2026, and its 2nm process and Zen 6 architecture will bring higher performance per watt. The differences in the two companies’ technological roadmaps—Intel relying on its own process technology, while AMD continues its deep collaboration with TSMC—will directly impact product costs and supply stability.
Looking ahead, Intel also plans to introduce stacked cache technology, similar to AMD’s 3D V-Cache, in subsequent processor series (such as Nova Lake) to further enhance cache capacity and data access speed. This indicates that Intel is striving to comprehensively counter its competitors across multiple dimensions, including performance, power efficiency, and cost. The launch of Diamond Rapids and Clearwater Forest is not merely an update to Intel’s product line but also a comprehensive test of its wafer manufacturing capabilities and technological ecosystem.
As 2026 approaches, the competition between Intel and AMD in the data center market will enter a new phase. The success of Diamond Rapids and Clearwater Forest will depend not only on hardware performance but also on Intel’s ability to achieve synergistic breakthroughs in supply chain, software optimization, and customer support. At that time, data center customers will have more high-performance options, and the industry will accelerate technological iteration due to increased competition.