Excited for Intel's next big chip reveal? Innovation event delay could mean you'll be waiting for a while

Intel’s ‘Innovation’ event is one of the cornerstones of the tech industry calendar, as if often sees the launch of upcoming desktop and laptop processors like the upcoming Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake chips. Unfortunately, we’ve got bad news: computing enthusiasts will be disappointed to learn that the event has been postponed until September 2025.

In a post on the Innovation 2024 website (registration required) the company states that “after careful consideration, we have made the decision to postpone our Intel-hosted event, Intel Innovation, in September until 2025.” Attendees have been notified that the event will be pushed back.

Intel provided a statement to elaborate further on the reason behind this year-long delay, noting that “given our financial results and outlook for the second half of 2024, which is tougher than previously expected, we are having to make some tough decisions as we continue to align our cost structure and look to assess how we rebuild a sustainable engine of process technology leadership.”

Intel went on to express “sincere appreciation to our partners, sponsors, exhibitors, developer communities and our larger team who had committed to support and attend the event.” While it’s also potentially bad news for consumers too, there are reasons for cautious optimism that we might see some Intel announcement elsewhere instead…

Rough seas ahead for intel?

Intel recently confirmed plans to lay off 15,000 employees due to its poor performance this year and has been rushing to do damage control regarding issues with 13th-gen and 14th-gen processors that are experiencing severe instability. The company has so far extended warranties for the CPUs from these generations by about two years, meaning the entire warranty for those CPUs is now five years.

According to Intel’s Communications Manager Thomas Hannaford, “Intel is committed to making sure all customers who have or are currently experiencing instability symptoms on their 13th and/or 14th-gen desktop processors are supported in the exchange process. We stand behind our products, and in the coming days we will be sharing more details on two-year extended warranty support for our boxed Intel Core 13th and 14th-gen desktop processors.”

We may not have to wait an entire year, however, as Intel may just announce a few of its bigger products at IFA 2024 later this year instead. According to the post on the Innovation site, Intel plans to focus on “current smaller, more targeted events, webinars, hackathons and meetups worldwide through Intel Connection and Intel AI Summit events, as well as a presence at other industry moments.”

While this is quite disappointing news to those of us who have been eagerly waiting for the event, it does show some self-awareness from the company that it has bigger fish to fry and will need to right a lot of wrongs before it can confidently drop new products.