Intel reported a net loss of $600 million for the fourth quarter of 2025, with CFO David Zinsner admitting that the company misjudged demand for data center products.

Speaking on the chipmaker’s earnings call after the publication of its Q4 and FY2025 results, Zinsner said conversations with customers had led the company to believe that while CPU core counts were expected to increase, “unit volumes were not.”

"Every hyperscaler we spoke with was signaling that,” he continued, “[but], over the third and fourth quarters, unit demand increased rapidly, and in conversations just before this call, it became clear that this is likely a multi-year demand trend."

In an effort to course correct, Zinsner said Intel is now "shifting as much [capacity] as we can over to the data center.” However, the company is expecting the CPU shortage to continue into FY2026 and hit its “lowest level” in Q1, before improving in Q2 and beyond. As a result, Intel has forecast current-quarter revenue of between $11.7 billion and $12.7bn.

By comparison, revenue for Q4 2025 was $13.7bn, down four percent Year-over-Year (YoY). The chipmaker reported full-year revenue of $52.9bn for 2025, flat YoY. Intel also completed its $5bn stock sale to Nvidia during the quarter.

Despite the missteps, Intel’s Data Center and AI Group (DCAI) still managed to perform better than expected, delivering quarterly revenue of $4.7bn and yearly revenue of $16.9bn, up nine percent and five percent YoY, respectively.

Meanwhile, Intel Foundry saw its revenue increase to $4.5bn, YoY growth of four percent, with full-year revenue of $17.8bn representing a three percent YoY increase. However, Intel Foundry still reported an operating loss of around $2.5bn for the quarter, in part due to the high costs associated with ramping up development of its 18A technology.

On the earnings call, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the company also needed to focus on improving its production yield to help boost supply, as, although yields are currently in line with internal plans, Tan said they are still below where he wants them to be, acknowledging that “building a foundry business will take time and considerable effort and resources.”

He went on to note that the company is now shipping the first products built on Intel 18A, and while that represents an important milestone, there is still work to be done. "For the 18A and 14A development, all in all, I see improvement, but still not quite to the industry-leading standard yet," Tan said.