As AMD increases server market share, Intel lets go of 129 Data Center employees, citing changed "priorities"

Intel recently laid off 129 staff members at its offices in Santa Clara. The layoffs took place despite excellent performance in Q4 2019. The redundancies were apparently part of strategic realignment at Intel's Data Centre Group, now known as the Data Platform Group 

Speaking to the San Fransisco Chronicle, Nancy Sanchez, a spokes rep for Intel said the company was "planning to eliminate roles associated with projects that are no longer priorities." 

What makes these Data Center Group layoffs interesting is that they come at a time when AMD's been making significant headway in the enterprise server segment. With AMD's EPYC Rome and upcoming EPYC Milan architectures offering more cores and lower power consumption at a lower TCO, large companies such as Netflix are turning away from Intel's Xeon offerings. This resulted in a significant increase in AMD's enterprise server market share over the last 2 years, from effectively 0 to nearly 5 percent. 

The Santa Clara redundancies may not be a direct consequence of AMD's gains in the data center space. However, it was likely a significant factor behind Intel's data center "strategic realignment" overall. 

We are interested in how Intel plans to respond to AMD's gains in the server space. Leaked Ice Lake server scores indicate that Intel is already working on next-gen Ice Lake Xeon parts on the 10nm and beyond. Just when they'll arrive on the market remains to be seen, however.