Overview
- Unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2026, Xeon 6+ is Intel’s first data center CPU built on the 18A process and targets RAN, core, cloud, and edge inference workloads.
- Clearwater Forest scales to 288 Darkmont efficiency cores across 12 compute tiles and integrates AMX, vRAN Boost, and QAT to handle AI and vRAN tasks on the CPU.
- The platform supports 12 channels of DDR5-8000, 96 lanes of PCIe 5.0 with 64 lanes for CXL 2.0, and remains drop-in compatible with the current Xeon server socket.
- Intel cites operator engagements including Rakuten Mobile, Vodafone, SK Telecom, and NTT DOCOMO as it promotes a CPU-first approach for most network inference.
- Ericsson testing reported by Wccftech points to sizable power and perf/watt gains versus a prior Xeon platform, and Tom’s Hardware reports systems will be available later this year.