TMTB: JPM TMT Conf Key Quotes (INTC, ALAB, ANET, DDOG)
INTC: Lip-Bu Tan, Chief Executive Officer, Intel
#1 — CPU Demand Inflection from Agentic AI (1:1 to 4:1 CPU-to-GPU Ratio)
Tan: “Used to be at training, it’s one CPU to eight GPU. And then now in the agentic AI with all the agents — I work a lot with the frontier models, some of the startups I’m involved in — they all tell me, ‘Lip-Bu, CPU actually is more useful. Even single threading.’ They said that most important is the reinforced learning, the orchestration of all the different agents, and the optimizing for some of the workload. And CPU is even more important.”
“I’m starting to see — not just my wishful thinking. Customer feedback to me: ‘Lip-Bu, it’s more like one to one.’ And now even some of them tell me it is four to one. Four CPU to one GPU. For inference and agents. Sometimes in life you need some breaks. And this is a good break for me. CPU has become high demand, and I try to make sure that we can meet the requirement from the customer.”
#2 — Foundry: 18A Yield Improving 7% Per Month, 14A on Track with TSMC A14 Timeline
Tan: “From the 18A, good news is much better than when I took over. I can see 7% yield per month improvement. Right now, it’s ahead of schedule compared to end of the year target. At 14A, we are engaging with customers with real engagement. The IP blocks, I’m gradually building them up. Still a long way to go — TSMC, Morris Chang took them at least ten years to build what they have. It’s not going to be overnight. But good news: 14A, my risk production is 2028. And volume production in 2029 is about the same time as A14 for TSMC.”
“Now I’m starting to work on the 10A, 7A roadmap. People don’t go to you for just one node. They’re looking for the roadmap for the future. So we have to build a long-term business.”
#3 — Advanced Packaging (EMIB-T): Billions in Customer Pre-Pay Commitments