The new Intel 18A CMOS process has succeeded to improve the energy efficiency over both all older Intel processes and the older TSMC 3 nm process used by Intel for its Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake CPUs.
On the other hand, it seems that Intel struggles to reach high clock frequencies in this new manufacturing process because the Panther Lake CPU models have lower clock frequencies than the corresponding Arrow Lake CPU models made by TSMC and the few Panther Lake models with maximum clock frequencies of 5 GHz or more (Core Ultra X7 and X9) are very expensive, so it is likely that their availability will be limited (due to low fabrication yields).
Therefore it is plausible that for now companies like NVIDIA and Apple will choose to use Intel only for low-risk products, as the article says.
Please read the article in full. The GPU die where all the computations occur and the majority of power is spent will remain on TSMC.
TSMC plans their A14 process to be in high volume production in 2028. It will include backside power delivery introduced in their A14 process (expected 2026/2027 high volume production), which means it will be quite competitive with Intel.
On the other hand, it seems that Intel struggles to reach high clock frequencies in this new manufacturing process because the Panther Lake CPU models have lower clock frequencies than the corresponding Arrow Lake CPU models made by TSMC and the few Panther Lake models with maximum clock frequencies of 5 GHz or more (Core Ultra X7 and X9) are very expensive, so it is likely that their availability will be limited (due to low fabrication yields).
Therefore it is plausible that for now companies like NVIDIA and Apple will choose to use Intel only for low-risk products, as the article says.