Intel has officially announced that its 18AP and 14A nodes are seeing big customer engagements, with 14A already securing a win at Tesla.
Intel 18AP & 14A Were Chipzilla's Biggest Bets, & They're Paying Off With Tesla Just Being The Beginning of What's To Come!
During its Q1 2026 earnings call, Intel's CEO Lip-Bu Tan confirmed the recent partnership with Elon Musk's SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla to support the Terafab project. It was already confirmed that the 14A process tech will be deployed at TeraFab, marking a huge confidence boost for the chipmaker, which has spent years finding big names to back up its Foundry Business.
Lip-Bu says that he can think of "no better partner" than Elon Musk as they continue to challenge the status quo in redifining the foundry business.
Elon stated that they (Tesla) are excited to use the Intel 14A process, calling it "State-of-the-Art". He also acknowledged that 14A isn't complete yet, which is him referring to the fact that 14A isn't viable for mass production at the moment, but by the time TeraFab scales up, the process technology will be in a much more mature state, and that's when TeraFab will be primed to use Intel's bleeding-edge tech to produce Tesla's latest custom silicon.
At a time when advanced wafer capacity is in short supply, this enables us to have better control over our supply chain. Intel has pioneered nearly every major innovation that has enabled dimensional scaling and high-volume manufacturing of silicon transistors over the last six decades. We have always been willing to take measured risks that have eventually paved the way for step-function improvements in transistor density, cost, power, and performance. As we look to continue challenging the status quo, I can think of no better partner than Elon Musk. We recently announced our partnership with SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla to support TeraFab.
Lip-Bu Tan - Intel CEO
The announcement came just days after industry insiders reported that Intel and Elon Musk were going to disclose the full details of the TeraFab project. Musk himself has been sharing Tesla's progress in the AI custom silicon business, leveraging Samsung and TSMC to make their latest chips, such as AI5, AI6, and AI6.5.
But Intel has also teased that they are already engaged with external customers on not only the 14A node, but also the 18AP node. Intel's 14A is currently more mature, yielding higher, and performance surpasses the 18A node at a similar point. This has gained momentum around the company's next-gen process technology.
At the same time, Lip-Bu said that he expected to see continued engagements with external customers, but he would like the companies to announce these partnerships themselves rather than Intel naming them and spoiling the fun. We saw the same with Tesla, which announced the 14A deal before Intel, and the same should be expected for future collaborations. Lip-Bu did highlight that they expect to see more design commitments merged between 2026 and 2027.
On Intel 18AP and Intel 14A, we continue to be encouraged by our external engagements. Intel 14A maturity, yield, and performance are outpacing Intel 18A at a similar point in time, and we continue to develop PDKs with multiple customers actively evaluating the technology. Their partnership has been critical, and their feedback is continuing to help us define the technology so that we can cater to their needs. We expect to see earlier design commitments emerge beginning in 2026 and expanding into 2027.
On 14A, we are making great progress in terms of yield and cycle time, and we are engaging heavily with multiple customers. My style is under-promise, over-deliver, so we have no plan to announce the customer unless the customer wants to announce it, and we support that. Back to TeraFab, clearly Elon and I believe that global supply is not keeping pace with the rapid acceleration in demand. We both share the vision that we are going to learn a lot together, exploring innovative ways in process and manufacturing. It is a very broad relationship, and we will update you as we go.
On 14A, we already have the 0.5 PDK available and we are aiming for the 0.9 PDK. That is where customers start to decide which products, how much volume, and capacity we need.
Lip-Bu Tan - Intel CEO
Intel also has the 0.9 PDK for 14A coming up, which will help customers finalize their plans at Intel's fab, such as products, volume, and capacity.
On 14A, we already have the 0.5 PDK available and we are aiming for the 0.9 PDK. That is where customers start to decide which products, how much volume, and capacity we need.
Lip-Bu Tan - Intel CEO
The 14A deal with Tesla will definitely be seen as a big milestone for Intel and its Foundry initiative. We expect to hear more customers revealing their confidence in 18AP and 14A technologies soon.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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