Moore’s law resumes – but not for all

In recent years, the IT industry and trade press were abuzz about the end of Moore’s law (the expectation that the scale of integration for chips doubles about every two years), and what that means for IT buyers. IT buyers saw a slowdown of improvements in processing speed and energy efficiency in the second half of the 2010s because of manufacturing difficulties at Intel, the global leader in server processors, without a viable alternative at the time. Arguably, this had negative effects on global data center carbon footprint and energy use.

This is likely to change from 2022 onwards, with an upswing in performance and efficiency. Intel, whose dominance still drives the industry, is set to find its mojo again – if only gradually. In the first months of 2022, the company will start making a new server processor generation, built on an enhanced version of its 10-nanometer technology (branded as Intel 7), to increase performance density.