Intel just made its most important server chip announcement in years. At MWC 2026 in Barcelona, the company officially previewed the Xeon 6+ “Clearwater Forest” — a 288-core monster built on Intel’s brand-new 18A process node, designed specifically for 6G infrastructure and edge AI workloads. It launches in H1 2026.
Intel Xeon 6+ Clearwater Forest: Key Specs
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Branding | Intel Xeon 6+ |
| Codename | Clearwater Forest |
| Process Node | Intel 18A (2nm-class, made in USA) |
| CPU Cores | Up to 288 Darkmont E-cores (1 socket) |
| Dual Socket | Up to 576 cores |
| IPC Uplift | +17% over Sierra Forest (Crestmont) |
| Perf/Watt vs Sierra Forest (dual socket) | +60% |
| Rack Power Reduction | 38% vs dual-socket Sierra Forest |
| Memory | 12 channels, DDR5-8000 |
| PCIe / CXL | 96 PCIe 5.0 lanes, 64 CXL 2.0 lanes |
| Packaging | Foveros Direct 3D + EMIB (2.5D) |
| Launch Target | H1 2026, Fab 52, Chandler, Arizona |
Why This Chip Is Different From Everything Before It
Clearwater Forest isn’t just a spec bump — it’s Intel’s manufacturing comeback moment. Built at Fab 52 in Arizona, it’s the first mass-production 2nm-class chip ever made in the United States, using Intel’s new 18A process with RibbonFET transistors — Intel’s first new transistor architecture in over a decade.
The packaging is equally groundbreaking. Unlike all previous Xeon generations that used EMIB (2D bridges between dies), Clearwater Forest uses Foveros Direct 3D — actual 3D stacking of compute tiles on top of active base dies. This dramatically reduces signal distance, cuts power loss, and allows 12 compute tiles to be packed into a single socket. Each tile has 24 Darkmont E-cores, for a total of 288 per socket.
The Darkmont E-core itself is a two-generation leap over the Crestmont cores in Sierra Forest — featuring a 9-wide decoder (up from 6-wide), double the integer ALUs, and enhanced floating-point units. That’s where the 17% IPC gain comes from.
For telcos and 6G infrastructure builders, the headline is the 38% rack power reduction and 60% better performance per watt vs the previous dual-socket Sierra Forest platform — tested by Ericsson. Built-in Intel AMX and vRAN Boost acceleration eliminate the need for discrete AI accelerators entirely. As TechnoSports has noted, operators like Rakuten Mobile and Vodafone are already adopting Xeon 6 for live vRAN deployments.
