What will computer chips look like in 2045?

I spent two days touring Intel’s most advanced fab and talking to its technical leadership to understand what the chips of the future will look like. A lot of what's coming next – gate-all-around transistors, backside power, CFET, hybrid bonding – is hard to follow without actually seeing it, so we made all the awesome animated explainers that I wish I had while I was prepping. I also asked Intel’s leadership how the semiconductor industry will cope with the enormous shock in demand from AI. AI compute has grown 3x a year for the last decade, but according to Intel's CTO, Intel could only double leading-edge wafer production with today’s global stock of chipmaking tools. What kinds of tricks can foundries pull to extend this crossover point where demand surges way ahead of supply? This was a totally new format for us - hope you enjoy! I also made flashcards for the concepts I had to learn to prep for this episode – link below. 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 * Flashcards: http://flashcards.dwarkesh.com/intel * Transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/intel-tour * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-will-computer-chips-look-like-in-2045/id1516093381?i=1000797633702 * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1kycOQ4f8ZHsXMOvUujdq6?si=NVKBI5NCRqirns5WPXzepQ Music for this episode composed by Tom Fox @tomfoxcatalog 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 * WorkOS helps you do business with enterprises. It gives you access to all the features most commonly required by enterprises: SSO, SCIM, RBAC, audit logs, and more. It’s easy to plug these features in — it only takes a few lines of code — and WorkOS is releasing new functionality all the time, including things like auth for agents. If you want to join the 3,000+ companies that rely on WorkOS, go to https://workos.com * Jane Street built a powerful tool called magic-trace to help analyze and debug their trading systems. It only exists because one engineer noticed a feature on Intel chips called Processor Trace and thought it’d be valuable to build on top of. Now, traders and developers across Jane Street use magic-trace every single day! If you want to be trusted to pursue the ideas you think matter most, Jane Street is hiring. Go to https://janestreet.com/dwarkesh * Antithesis’ testing platform lets you perfectly reproduce every single bug you find. That’s because it runs on a fully deterministic computer, which strips out all the unpredictability that can make certain bugs flaky and hard to pin down. To build it, Antithesis found every source of non-determinism in Intel’s x86 architecture and either sealed it off or replaced it with a controlled simulation. Learn more at https://antithesis.com/dwarkesh To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – Intro 00:00:47 – How Intel brings up a new process node 00:03:22 – What Intel learned from 10nm 00:06:28 – From planar transistors to gate-all-around 00:13:13 – Why High-NA EUV pays off for Intel but not TSMC 00:19:20 – Could chips have evolved completely differently? 00:23:33 – Inside Intel's "Hot Topics" meeting 00:29:30 – Replacing copper wires with ruthenium 00:32:41 – Why stacked transistors take a decade to ship 00:39:45 – Hybrid bonding and the chip-to-chip bottleneck 00:48:00 – There aren't enough tools to 10x chip production 00:53:14 – Can Intel catch up to TSMC? 01:01:02 – Terafab, and rethinking the fab from scratch

Dwarkesh Patelhost

Oct 22, 20261h 9mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: October 22, 2026
Duration: 1h 9m
Channel: Dwarkesh Podcast
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

I spent two days touring Intel’s most advanced fab and talking to its technical leadership to understand what the chips of the future will look like. A lot of what's coming next – gate-all-around transistors, backside power, CFET, hybrid bonding – is hard to follow without actually seeing it, so we made all the awesome animated explainers that I wish I had while I was prepping. I also asked Intel’s leadership how the semiconductor industry will cope with the enormous shock in demand from AI. AI compute has grown 3x a year for the last decade, but according to Intel's CTO, Intel could only double leading-edge wafer production with today’s global stock of chipmaking tools. What kinds of tricks can foundries pull to extend this crossover point where demand surges way ahead of supply? This was a totally new format for us - hope you enjoy! I also made flashcards for the concepts I had to learn to prep for this episode – link below. 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒
Flashcards: http://flashcards.dwarkesh.com/intel
Transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/intel-tour
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-will-computer-chips-look-like-in-2045/id1516093381?i=1000797633702
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1kycOQ4f8ZHsXMOvUujdq6?si=NVKBI5NCRqirns5WPXzepQ
Music for this episode composed by Tom Fox @tomfoxcatalog 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒
• WorkOS helps you do business with enterprises. It gives you access to all the features most commonly required by enterprises: SSO, SCIM, RBAC, audit logs, and more. It’s easy to plug these features in — it only takes a few lines of code — and WorkOS is releasing new functionality all the time, including things like auth for agents. If you want to join the 3,000+ companies that rely on WorkOS, go to https://workos.com
• Jane Street built a powerful tool called magic-trace to help analyze and debug their trading systems. It only exists because one engineer noticed a feature on Intel chips called Processor Trace and thought it’d be valuable to build on top of. Now, traders and developers across Jane Street use magic-trace every single day! If you want to be trusted to pursue the ideas you think matter most, Jane Street is hiring. Go to https://janestreet.com/dwarkesh
• Antithesis’ testing platform lets you perfectly reproduce every single bug you find. That’s because it runs on a fully deterministic computer, which strips out all the unpredictability that can make certain bugs flaky and hard to pin down. To build it, Antithesis found every source of non-determinism in Intel’s x86 architecture and either sealed it off or replaced it with a controlled simulation. Learn more at https://antithesis.com/dwarkesh To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – Intro 00:00:47 – How Intel brings up a new process node 00:03:22 – What Intel learned from 10nm 00:06:28 – From planar transistors to gate-all-around 00:13:13 – Why High-NA EUV pays off for Intel but not TSMC 00:19:20 – Could chips have evolved completely differently? 00:23:33 – Inside Intel's "Hot Topics" meeting 00:29:30 – Replacing copper wires with ruthenium 00:32:41 – Why stacked transistors take a decade to ship 00:39:45 – Hybrid bonding and the chip-to-chip bottleneck 00:48:00 – There aren't enough tools to 10x chip production 00:53:14 – Can Intel catch up to TSMC? 01:01:02 – Terafab, and rethinking the fab from scratch

SPEAKERS

Dwarkesh Patel
host
Host of the Dwarkesh Podcast, interviewing technical and industry leaders about AI, science, and technology.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Dwarkesh Podcast, featuring Dwarkesh Patel, What will computer chips look like in 2045? explores aI demand meets physics, tools, and packaging in future chips Intel leaders explain how a leading-edge node like 14A is finalized through thousands of tightly controlled steps, using defect metrology, cross-sectional analysis, and yield learning loops to reach repeatable high-volume manufacturing.

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