Intel has been building chips designed for gaming PCs for years but the company is now moving into handheld devices too.

With the Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” laptop chips, Intel says it’s largely eliminating the “alphabet soup” of obtuse product suffixes that only nerds truly enjoyed — with one twist. Now, the only truly weird aspect of Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 processor lineup is a new “X” designation,

Intel (INTC) unveiled the Core Ultra Series 3 processors at CES 2026 as the first AI PC platform built on its Intel 18A process technology. Top models like the Core Ultra X9 and X7 include up to 16 CPU cores,

Intel Corp. showed off laptop computers based on processors with a new design, part of the chipmaker’s effort to make its products competitive again.

Much of the non-graphics aspects of Panther Lake include a lot of optimizations over previous generations, plus a move to Intel's smaller (2nm) 18A process node, which should result in the relevant chips being better overall, drawing notably less power. The first systems incorporating the 3 Series processors begin shipping immediately.

Intel executives told PCWorld.com that they're preparing for war with AMD in the handheld PC gaming market with an upcoming version of Panther Lake, known as Core Ultra Series 3 chip.

Acer unveils refreshed Swift and Aspire AI laptops at CES 2026, featuring Intel Core Ultra processors, programmable hotkey, and more.