Intel is aiming to debut a new AI data center chip before the year closes， comes with lower-cost memory and cooling technology than Nvidia and AMD alternatives.

AI boom is quietly shifting from building models to running them， millions of times a day， for ordinary users.

Intel's Crescent Island strategy appears to lean into inference： air cooling instead of liquid cooling， LPDDR5 instead of high-bandwidth memory， and a focus on workloads where lower cost may matter as much as raw performance.

After Gaudi failed to break through， the company seems to be choosing a narrower battlefield where its weaknesses hurt less and its manufacturing ambitions might eventually help more.