Intel says its cheapest laptop chips are completely sold out

Intel says it cannot make enough of its cheapest laptop chips. On its latest earnings call, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said demand for the Wildcat Lake chip "is outstripping supply." CFO David Zinsner said the chips are now sold out.

What Wildcat Lake is

Wildcat Lake is Intel's budget-focused laptop chip. Zinsner said it is arriving "exactly at the right time because it's cost-optimized." It appears in new lower-cost Windows laptops, such as the Dell XPS 13 and the HP Omnibook 5 14. These laptops compete with the MacBook Neo on price.

The memory problem

Shortages of RAM, the short-term memory a computer uses to run apps, and other parts have pushed up PC prices in recent months. Many Wildcat Lake laptops start cheap but ship with just 8GB of RAM. Windows laptops can struggle to get by on that much.

Zinsner said Intel is "not optimistic about next year in terms of memory." He expects no improvement in 2027 and said 2028 remains to be seen. Chipmaker SK Hynix is gloomier and predicts the RAM shortage will last through 2030.

What is not clear

The report does not say how long Wildcat Lake will stay sold out or how much laptop prices will rise. Tan blamed the shortage on huge demand for AI. Zinsner still said he expects the PC to go through a "renaissance" despite all this.

For shoppers, the practical step is to check the memory listed on any cheap laptop. An 8GB model may cost less now but feel slow sooner.