Intel's Wildcat Lake CPU shortage hits budget laptop market

Intel has exhausted its supply of Wildcat Lake processors, its Core Series 3 chips for budget laptops, according to CFO David Zinsner during the quarterly results presentation. This shortage hits a market already pressured by rising PC prices. Demand for these low-cost CPUs exceeds supply, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said, as memory shortages and other component constraints drive up prices. The chips are designed for affordable notebooks, a segment where component costs heavily influence final pricing. Wildcat Lake appears in new Windows laptops like the Dell XPS 13 and HP OmniBook 5 14, often with just 8GB of RAM. Tan noted a broader industry supply shortage tied to AI demand, while also acknowledging a slowdown in overall PC demand.