英特尔股价周四下跌近四分之一，此前该公司披露个人电脑处理器销售大幅下滑。这场抛售始于英特尔公布第三季度业绩，业绩中包含一些不错的数字，例如营收同比增长21%至165亿美元，得益于数据中心和人工智能产品增长78%，毛利率为43%。营收数字处于英特尔158亿至168亿美元营收指引的高端，毛利率超出其预期两个百分点。
Intel’s share price sank by almost a quarter on Thursday after the company revealed a deep dip in sales of PC processors. The rout began after the silicon-slinger posted Q3 results that included some nice numbers, such as a 21 percent year on year revenue jump to $16.5 billion, helped by 78 percent growth for datacenter and AI products, and gross margins of 43 percent. The revenue number was at the high end of Intel’s revenue guidance of $15.8-16.8 billion, and the gross margin beat its predictions by two points.
但这些利好被客户端计算和物理人工智能产品营收下滑所抵消，该业务收入达到81亿美元，同比下降5%，环比下降9%。英特尔首席执行官陈立武在随财报发布的预先准备的讲话[PDF]中表示：“在过去几周，我们的客户开始根据内存价格和供应情况发出个人电脑放缓信号。截至目前，系统终端价格大幅上涨，给本已有限的IT预算带来额外压力。”
Outweighing those upsides was a decline in revenue for client computing and physical AI products, which saw incoming cash reach $8.1 billion but fall five percent year-over-year and nine percent decline from last quarter. In prepared remarks [PDF] published to coincide with Intel’s earnings announcement, CEO Lip Bu Tan said “In recent weeks, our customers began signaling a PC slowdown based on memory prices and availability. Year-to-date system end-point prices have increased significantly placing additional pressure on already limited IT budgets.”
他补充道：“在过去两个月里，个人电脑修正的步伐加快，因为我们的原始设备制造商合作伙伴正在积极管理库存以匹配疲软的销售。”他预测，个人电脑芯片市场明年将萎缩12%，并且“直到内存供应和价格开始正常化之前，市场仍将艰难”。考虑到韩国内存制造商SK海力士本周预测内存短缺将持续到2030年，这可能要几年后才会实现。
“The pace of the PC correction has accelerated over the last two months, as our OEM partners are aggressively managing inventory to match the softer sell through,” he added, before predicting that the market for PC chips will shrink by 12 percent next year and remain tough “until memory availability and prices begin to normalize.”Which may not be for years, given Korean memory-maker SK Hynix this week predicted that memory shortages will persist until the year 2030.
因此，英特尔最大的业务陷入困境。人工智能和至强处理器能否带来艰难的救援？陈立武试图给投资者带来乐观理由，称英特尔看到CPU需求“回升”，原因是客户希望获得能耗更低的计算系统。他说：“越来越多地，能源效率正在成为人工智能基础设施建设中最重要的指标。”
Intel’s biggest business is therefore in trouble. AI and Xeons riding to a rocky rescue Tan tried to give investors reasons to be cheerful, by saying Intel sees a “resurgence in demand for CPU” sparked by customers’ desire for computing systems that consume less energy. “Increasingly, energy efficiency is becoming the most important metric for the AI infrastructure build-out,” he said.
Tan认为这一点很重要，因为“虽然GPU擅长‘思考型任务’，但确定性CPU在‘查找’任务上效率要高得多。一次GPU推理查询的能耗可能高达数瓦时，而一次基于CPU的查询可能只消耗几焦耳的能量。”这位CEO推断，在代理式AI的背景下，更低的能耗十分重要——所谓代理式AI，是指我们很快都将运行许多自主代理来处理个人和专业领域的琐碎工作。
That matters, Tan argued, because “While GPUs are great at ‘thinking tasks,’ deterministic CPUs are far more efficient at ‘finding’ tasks. While a GPU reasoning query can run as high as multiple watt-hours of energy, a single CPU-based query could cost only joules of energy.”The CEO reasoned that lower energy consumption is important in the context of agentic AI – the idea that we will all soon run many autonomous agents to handle personal and professional scutwork.
“即使对数字代理的总数以及每颗CPU所服务的代理数量采用保守估计，也很容易预见未来五年CPU将拥有巨大的美元和出货量TAM（总可寻址市场），”Tan说。“根据我们的估计，主要由代理式工作负载驱动的服务器CPU TAM，可能从目前的400亿美元增长到五年后的2000亿美元以上，增幅高达5倍。”但在财报电话会议上，英特尔高管承认，由于公司难以采购硅晶圆等关键供应品，短期内和长期内可能都难以从这一热潮中获利。
“Applying even conservative estimates to the total number of digital agents, and agents serviced per CPU, it is easy to anticipate a massive dollar and unit TAM [total addressable market] for CPUs over the coming five years,” Tan said. “By our estimates, server CPU TAM, largely driven by agentic workloads, could increase as much as 5X from where it is today, from $40B to more than $200B over five years.”But during its earnings call, Intel execs admitted it may struggle to cash in on that boom in the short and longer term as the company struggles to source key supplies like silicon wafers.
当被问及英特尔能否满足服务器CPU的需求、投资者是否应因此预期英特尔下一财年早期数据中心产品销售额将进一步增长时，首席财务官Dave Zinsner拒绝提供任何指引。“CPU需求将有一个强劲的驱动因素，”他回避道。“我们看到这种情况将持续贯穿明年全年。我们正在供应端努力，以确保能够满足客户的需求。我们很可能无法完全满足他们的要求，但我认为上半年我们将处于比下半年更具挑战性的境地。”
Asked if Intel can meet demand for server CPUs and if investors should therefore expect further growth in datacenter product sales early in Intel’s next financial year, chief financial officer Dave Zinsner declined to offer any guidance. “There is going to be a strong driver of demand for CPUs,” he demurred. “We see that continuing all through next year. We are working on the supply side of the equation to make sure that we can meet what customers need. We will likely not fully meet what they require, but I think we are going to be in a more challenging situation in the first half of the year than we are in the second half.”
英特尔正试图在其晶圆厂网络中调整生产，以便尽可能多地生产芯片，甚至会将部分PC芯片产能用于数据中心产品。但总体而言，芯片巨头英特尔显然陷入了不小的麻烦。
Intel is trying to shift production around its fleet of fabs so it can crank out as much silicon as possible and will even devote some PC chip production capacity to datacenter products. But overall, Chipzilla is clearly in a spot of bother.
首席执行官陈立武表示，他“重建”英特尔的计划将是“一段多年的旅程”，并坚称：“在这18个月里，我们取得了巨大进展，包括大幅调整员工规模、消除中层管理和官僚主义、精简高管团队，并建立了一支几乎全新的领导团队。”他指出，英特尔在制造工艺方面取得了强劲进展，将使其更接近台积电的水平，这意味着其自身产品将变得更强劲，而公司的代工业务也将更具吸引力。
CEO Lip Bu Tan said his plan to “rebuild” Intel will be “a multiyear journey” and insisted “We have made enormous strides in these 18 months, including a dramatic re-sizing of our workforce, eliminating middle management and bureaucracy, streamlining our executive ranks and establishing an almost entirely new leadership team.”He pointed to strong progress on Intel’s manufacturing processes that will bring it closer to parity with TSMC, meaning its own products will become more potent while the company’s foundry business also becomes more attractive.
他还表示，英特尔已恢复了“以工程为中心的文化”，这将有助于公司改进。但首席执行官也承认：“我对本季度未能满足强劲的客户需求感到失望。”“我们面临近期挑战，包括制造供应短缺、前所未有的内存短缺，以及由此导致的PC需求疲软。但我对我们的前进道路仍充满信心。”投资者并不认同这种信心。英特尔股价开盘报每股92.96美元。
And he said that Intel has restored an “engineering-centric culture” that will help the company to improve. But the CEO also admitted “I am disappointed that we were not able to meet strong customer demand in this quarter.”“We face near term challenges, including manufacturing supply shortages, the unprecedented memory crunch, and the resulting softness in PC demand. But I remain confident in our path forward.”Investors did not share that confidence. Intel’s shares started the day at $92.96 apiece.
公司发布业绩后，股价立即跌至73美元。撰稿时，盘后交易中股价已触及70.87美元，跌幅达23.7%。®
Immediately after the company announced its results, shares sank to $73. At the time of writing, after-hours trading has seen the price reach $70.87, a 23.7 percent slump. ®