We are in the ‘worst’ of the chip crisis and it will last until 2023, Intel boss says

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Intel is in the “worst” of its chip crisis, and it will not be fixed until 2023, its chief executive has said.

Like other chip makers, the company is struggling to make enough processors to feed the vast demand, leading to issues with the availability of everything from PlayStation 5s to cars.

That will continue in some form until well past next year, Pat Gelsinger told CNBC.

“We’re in the worst of it now, every quarter next year we’ll get incrementally better, but they’re not going to have supply-demand balance until 2023,” Gelsinger said.

He said that the problem was not always creating chips in general but that specific parts may not be available. That has compressed the sales of Intel’s own computers, Mr Gelsinger said, since it was difficult to get all of the different components required.

“We call it match sets, where we may have the CPU, but you don’t have the LCD, or you don’t have the Wi-Fi. Data centers are particularly struggling with some of the power chips and some of the networking or ethernet chips,” he said.

The issues have caused particular problems for Intel, whose share price fell 8 per cent after the announcement that its PC chip business had shrunk 2 per cent. It blamed the widespread chip problems for the failure to be able to respond to demand.

The chip shortage has been ongoing for months, in large part because of a collision of global issues – from coronavirus to bad weather – have made semiconductor production difficult.

At the same time, demand has increased vastly, as the pandemic and associated lockdowns meant that people looked to buy computer products to work and live from home.