Intel (INTC.US) and AMD (AMD.US) “PC Security Server”: Old chips are returning to new computers, AI PCs are snubbed

The Zhitong Finance App learned that investment bank Susquehanna's latest research report indicates that the share of older processors from Intel (INTC.US) and Ultrafine Semiconductor (AMD.US) has risen significantly in 2026, mainly because the two major chip makers tend to prioritize the supply of the latest process chips to the server market with higher profit margins rather than AI PCs.

The report shows that in the second quarter of 2026, the overall share of models equipped with Intel AI PC processors remained stable. Among them, the Arrow Lake series's share of Intel platform notebooks remained flat at about 10% month-on-month (359 SKUs in total), while the Lunar Lake series increased slightly by 1 percentage point to about 9% month-on-month (319 SKUs in total).

Notably, the share of several previous generation platforms in Intel notebooks has instead increased — for example, Tiger Lake grew 2 percentage points month-on-month and Ice Lake increased 1 percentage point month-on-month. At the same time, the share of notebooks equipped with Intel's Intel 7 process processors dropped 6 percentage points month-on-month to about 48%.

A team led by Susquehanna analyst Christopher Roland (Christopher Roland) said in a Tuesday report that this may indicate that Intel is prioritizing production capacity for more advanced processes to server CPUs — Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids both use Intel 7 processes.

A similar trend is also evident in AMD, where the appearance rate of older CPUs in new PC assemblies is also rising.

Although the number of new PC assemblies so far in 2026 has been higher than expected, Susquehanna still expects original design manufacturer (ODM) shipments to drop 10% year-on-year for the whole year, mainly due to a marked weakening in demand expectations for the second half of the year.

This judgment is in line with the predictions of many agencies. IDC expects global PC shipments to drop 11.3% in 2026; Omdia predicts a 12% drop; and Morgan Stanley expects a drop of more than 5%. The chill in the PC market is in stark contrast to the heat of the server market.