January 6, 2025
Intel ( INTC ) debuted its latest high-powered mobile chips for commercial PC users during its CES 2025 showcase on Monday. The company said it’s bringing its Intel 200V series processors to enterprise systems at a time when the industry is gearing up for the end of Windows 10 support, which should boost sales throughout 2025 and beyond.
Intel’s second-generation Core Ultra processor, the 200V is designed to handle on-device AI tasks while simultaneously offering better overall battery life and performance than prior Intel chips. The company previously showed off the Core Ultra 200V for consumer systems in September.
Intel’s announcement comes as it faces stiff competition from longtime rival AMD ( AMD ), which showed off its AI Pro 300 series of processors for commercial systems back in October. Chipmaker Qualcomm is also moving in on Intel’s turf with its own Snapdragon X Elite line of semiconductors for Windows-based computers.
According to David Feng, vice president of Intel’s client computing group, laptops running the company’s Core Ultra 200V will get 10.5 hours of battery life while using Microsoft Teams and 20.3 hours using Microsoft 365. AMD’s Ryzen AI 7 Pro 360 gets 6.1 hours of use while running Windows Teams and 13.5 hours while running Microsoft 365.
Qualcomm’s ( QCOM ) Snapdragon X Elite, meanwhile, got 9.2 hours of use out of Teams and 18.5 hours while using Microsoft 365, according to Intel's testing.
Intel is pushing the Core Ultra 200V line as a major upgrade for enterprise users looking to get into using on-device AI apps rather than those that run exclusively in the cloud. On-device AI promises better overall safety and privacy because, unlike cloud-based AI apps, you don’t have to send your data over the internet. Instead, your PC processes your data locally.
In addition to the Core Ultra 200V’s AI capabilities, Intel is banking on Microsoft’s ( MSFT ) move to end support for Windows 10 in October as a potential boon for chip and device sales in the latter half of the year.
“2025 is the year of refresh driven by innovation,” Feng said. “And we’re working closely with Microsoft to accelerate the enterprise transition to Windows 11 and harness the benefits of AI between Microsoft experiences and the broad Intel … ecosystem.”
The 200V is also Intel’s first chip designed to meet Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC standard, which means it provides the power needed to run AI tasks like Microsoft’s Windows Recall, a feature that can take snapshots of what you do on your PC so that you can easily search for them later.
Intel’s latest offering comes at a precarious time for the company. In December, Intel’s board ousted CEO Pat Gelsinger after the chipmaker’s stock price collapsed some 60% over the last year. At least some of those declines have to do with Gelsinger’s massive turnaround effort that sought to transform Intel into a third-party contract chip manufacturer.
But the move has proven costly for Intel. Even after turning its Intel Foundry segment into an independent subsidiary to coax customers into trusting that the company would treat its own chips and customers’ semiconductors the same, the venture continues to hemorrhage cash.
And while the company has signed deals to build custom chips for both Microsoft and Amazon, a number of Wall Street analysts still view the foundry effort as a losing proposition.
If the company is going to have a better 2025, it all starts with its chip sales. And enterprise offerings will be a major part of that.
@DanielHowley .
