The past few years for Intel? A rollercoaster. They’re tossing folks from the payroll like it’s a karaoke party gone wrong. Just recently, more U.S. workers got pink slips. Why? Intel’s diving headfirst into AI — or so they say. No clue why it always sounds like a buzzword to me. Anyway, just after the big earnings reveal for Q2 (who really follows those?), they drop a bomb: trimming down to 75,000 “core staff.” Quick math — that’s like 24k people saying bye-bye.
And oh, Intel’s giving the boot to their facility dreams in Germany and Poland — poof! A whole lotta potential jobs vanished like my New Year’s resolutions. But wait, they’re shuffling some ops from Costa Rica to Vietnam. It’s like a global game of musical chairs, except not fun at all. Some folks stay put in Costa Rica, though, so at least there’s that.
David Zinsner, the guy holding the purse strings at Intel, hinted that Ohio’s construction might take a bit of a nap. “We’re pacing ourselves with spending,” he claims. Meanwhile, Intel’s figuring on slashing $17 billion in expenses over the next year, but still peeking at losses. The drama continues with no solid date on the next wave of layoffs. Charming, right?
Now, drifting a bit — bear with me — into Intel’s past. Once upon a time, they ruled the PC chip empire from the 80s to early 2000s. Then they blinked, and oops! Forgot that little gizmos and AI are the new cool kids on the block. Fast forward, they lost around $7 billion in 2023. Yikes. The mobile chip world zoomed ahead while Intel clung to its dusty crown.
And then, the Series 1 Intel Core Ultra AI chips flopped. Well, maybe not a flop, but it wasn’t fireworks either. Intel scrambled to hustle out Series 2 within the same year. Meanwhile, a squabble with TSMC stirred the pot. Their ex-boss, Gelsinger, irked TSMC by saying something about Taiwan not being very stable. Smooth, right? TSMC yanked their discount on wafers — Intel could almost hear the ka-ching of rising costs.
Now there are whispers (okay, more like chatter) about more AMD love creeping into PCs. Interesting shift, huh? As for Intel’s hope — and boy, they need a heap of it — they’re banking on new Panther Lake and Nova Lake chips. Could they be the knight in silicon armor? Guess we’ll see.
