Intel on Monday unveiled its Core Ultra Series 3 processors, also known as Panther Lake, at CES 2026, introducing what it called its first AI PC platform built on the Intel 18A manufacturing process.
The company said the processors will power more than 200 PC designs and will begin shipping in consumer laptops later this month.
The Core Ultra Series 3 platform is the first compute lineup produced on Intel 18A, a process technology designed and manufactured in the United States. Intel said the processors are aimed at improving power efficiency, CPU and GPU performance and on-device AI capabilities, while maintaining compatibility with x86 software.
Pre-orders for consumer laptops powered by Core Ultra Series 3 processors will begin on January 6, with global availability starting January 27. Intel said edge systems based on the same platform are expected to launch in the second quarter of 2026.
“With Series 3, we are laser focused on improving power efficiency, adding more CPU performance, a bigger GPU in a class of its own, more AI compute and app compatibility you can count on with x86,” said Jim Johnson, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Client Computing Group.
The mobile lineup introduces a new class of Core Ultra X9 and X7 processors, featuring integrated Intel Arc graphics. According to the company, top configurations offer up to 16 CPU cores, 12 Xe-cores and up to 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of neural processing performance.
Intel said these systems deliver up to 60% higher multithread performance, up to 77% faster gaming performance and up to 27 hours of battery life, compared with prior generations.
Alongside premium models, Intel also announced Core-branded processors based on the same Series 3 architecture for mainstream laptops, targeting lower price points while using the same platform foundation.
For the first time, Intel said Core Ultra Series 3 processors are also being certified for embedded and industrial edge use cases. These include applications in robotics, smart cities, industrial automation and healthcare, with support for extended temperature ranges, continuous operation and predictable performance.
Intel claimed the Series 3 platform delivers up to 1.9x higher large language model performance, up to 2.3x better performance per watt per dollar in video analytics workloads and up to 4.5x higher throughput for vision-language-action models. The company said integrating CPU, GPU and AI acceleration into a single system-on-chip design can reduce the total cost of ownership compared with multi-chip architectures.
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