Intel is not giving up on its GPU venture as Xe3 Celestial and Xe4 Druid architectures are still on the menu. While the software team is focusing on Xe3 chips, the hardware one is already moving to the next big thing.
During The Full Nerd Podcast, Intel Fellow Tom Petersen has ensured that Team Blue is already well-advanced in its development of upcoming GPUs. “Our IP that’s kind of called Xe3, which is the one after Xe2, that’s pretty much baked, right. And so, the software teams have a lot of work to do on Xe3. The hardware teams are off on to the next thing,” says Petersen. In the course of the discussion, he also indicated that the software side of Xe2 Battlemage shouldn’t cause any big trouble.
Tom explained that Intel’s GPU development cycle starts from architecture before implementation, then goes to the debug phase and driver development, ending with hardening and building it out. While the brand would like to have a new GPU generation each year, these cycles naturally take time to finish.
With such a development cadence, we can expect Xe3 Celestial GPUs sometime in late 2026. Unlike Arc Alchemist, and Battlemage for now, Celestial chips should be designed to slot into the Ultra Enthusiast segment. An exciting prospect, assuming Intel can pull it out.
While Tom didn’t share any precise future plans, at least we have another confirmation that Intel isn’t letting down its discrete GPUs. If the efforts put into improving Alchemist are any indication, the future of Arc is bright. But first, let’s see what the higher Xe2 models have to offer.
For now, the first Battlemage graphics cards seem correctly priced, though not as low as we would have hoped. But still, this is a promising start, especially since these costs are likely to go down in a couple of months following the release of next-gen Nvidia and AMD GPUs. We are all in for a nice value offering.
