Intel on Monday unveiled Panther Lake, its new artificial intelligence-focused laptop chip, using the CES trade show in Las Vegas to put a public marker down on a manufacturing gamble that sits at the heart of its turnaround strategy.

The launch is Intel’s first major attempt to convince investors and customers that its next-generation manufacturing process, known as 18A, is ready for prime time. Panther Lake is the first high-volume product built on that process, and its success is closely tied to Intel’s effort to claw back market share it has lost in recent years to rivals, particularly Advanced Micro Devices.

Speaking at CES, Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan said the company had delivered on its promise to ship its first products made on the 18A process in 2025, pointing directly to the Panther Lake lineup.

“We said we would do it, and we’re doing it,” Tan told the audience, framing the launch as a milestone for Intel’s manufacturing comeback.

Jim Johnson, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s PC group, provided technical details of the first Panther Lake family, branded Intel Core Ultra Series 3. He said the chips use a new transistor architecture and a redesigned power delivery method made possible by the 18A process, changes Intel says are central to improving performance and efficiency for AI workloads on personal computers.

According to Intel, the Core Ultra Series 3 chips deliver 60% better performance than the prior-generation Lunar Lake Series 2. Lunar Lake marked a strategic retreat for Intel on manufacturing, with much of that chip line produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, underscoring how far Intel had fallen behind in process technology.

Panther Lake is intended to signal a reversal of that dependence. The stakes are high because it represents Intel’s first attempt to manufacture a complex, high-volume processor in-house after years of delays and missteps in bringing new process nodes to market.

Johnson said Intel has adopted a chiplet-based design for Panther Lake, including a separate graphics chiplet that is stitched together with other components to form the full processor. The modular approach mirrors strategies used successfully by competitors and allows Intel to mix and match components more efficiently while improving yields over time.

Intel also said it plans to extend the Panther Lake architecture beyond traditional laptops. Johnson confirmed that the company will launch a platform for handheld gaming devices based on Panther Lake designs later this year, targeting a fast-growing niche where portable PCs from multiple manufacturers have gained traction among gamers.

Behind the scenes, however, the road to Panther Lake has been rigorous. Reuters reported last year that Intel had struggled with yields for the new processors, meaning too many defective chips per silicon wafer. Intel executives have since said yields are improving month by month and that progress is sufficient to support the 2025 launch, though investors remain alert to any signs of further manufacturing hiccups.

The CES unveiling comes amid intense competition across the AI chip landscape. AMD, which has steadily taken share from Intel in PCs and servers, is set to deliver a keynote address at CES later on Monday. Chief executive Lisa Su is expected to introduce new PC processors focused on AI and graphics, reinforcing AMD’s push into areas where Intel once dominated.

AMD has also been gaining momentum beyond PCs. The company recently announced a multibillion-dollar deal with OpenAI for its next-generation MI400 accelerators, some of which are expected to be deployed this year. The agreement is projected to generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue, highlighting AMD’s growing role in large-scale AI infrastructure.

Nvidia, the dominant force in AI accelerators, also used CES to underline its lead. Chief executive Jensen Huang said the company’s next generation of chips is already in full production and can deliver five times the AI computing performance of its previous products when running chatbots and other AI applications.

Against that backdrop, Intel’s Panther Lake launch is less about claiming leadership today and more about restoring confidence. The company is asking customers and investors to believe that its long-delayed manufacturing reset is finally taking hold, and that it can once again compete on performance, efficiency, and scale.

Nigeria’s cash-based economy tightened its grip in 2025, with new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data showing that the overwhelming majority of physical currency continued to circulate outside the formal banking system.

Beyond structural informality and lingering trust issues, the trend is increasingly being linked to anxiety around the country’s controversial new tax law and its enforcement provisions, which many Nigerians see as punitive.

CBN money and credit statistics for November 2025 show that currency outside banks stood at N4.91 trillion, out of a total N5.26 trillion in circulation. That means roughly 93.35% of all physical cash in the country was held outside the banking sector, leaving barely 6.65% within banks. This marks one of the highest ratios recorded in the year and reinforces a pattern that has now persisted for almost two years.

The scale of the imbalance is striking. In October 2025, N4.65 trillion out of N5.06 trillion in circulation sat outside banks, equivalent to 91.87%. The further rise in November points to an accelerating preference for cash holdings as the year drew to a close, rather than a seasonal blip.

Across the full year, the data paints a consistent picture. January 2025 opened with N4.74 trillion outside banks out of N5.24 trillion in circulation, or about 90.49%. February dipped slightly to 89.62%, before March jumped to 91.91%. April and May remained above 91%, with May reaching 92.39%. Although June and July eased marginally to just under 90%, the ratio climbed again from August through November, staying above 92% for much of that period.

In simple terms, Nigeria has spent most of 2025 with more than nine out of every ten naira notes circulating entirely outside the formal banking ecosystem.

Total currency in circulation also rose steadily. At N5.26 trillion in November, it reached its highest level of the year, up from N5.01 trillion in May and N5.23 trillion in January. On a year-on-year basis, currency in circulation expanded from N4.88 trillion in November 2024, meaning roughly N383.7 billion in additional cash was injected into the economy over twelve months.

Yet this increase did not translate into stronger bank deposits. The share of currency retained within banks stayed trapped in a narrow 6–10% range throughout the year. In effect, newly issued cash largely flowed straight into the informal economy, bypassing deposit mobilization.

The reserve data adds another layer to the story. Bank reserves stood at N30.94 trillion in November 2025, slightly lower than October’s N31.58 trillion but well above the N27.43 trillion recorded in January. Reserves peaked at N34.67 trillion in September before easing back. Year-on-year, reserves jumped from N25.99 trillion in November 2024 to nearly N31 trillion a year later, an increase of almost N5 trillion.

This divergence is telling. While currency in circulation grew by less than N400 billion year-on-year, bank reserves rose by about N5 trillion. The implication is that liquidity tightening measures mopped up bank funds aggressively, pushing financial institutions to lock more money with the CBN rather than deploy it as credit. This environment raises funding costs and intensifies credit pricing pressures, even as businesses already struggle with high borrowing rates.

At the same time, the informal economy absorbed most new cash issuance. Physical naira continued to circulate through retail trade, transport, household consumption, and small-scale enterprises, with little recycling back into the banking system.

What makes the 2025 trend more politically and socially sensitive is the growing belief that recent tax policy changes are accelerating the shift away from banks. The new tax law, which came into force amid strong public debate, expanded enforcement powers for revenue authorities. Among its most controversial elements is the alleged authority of the Nigerian Revenue Service (NRS) to place liens on, or directly debit, bank accounts suspected of tax non-compliance.

While officials have sought to reassure the public that safeguards exist, the perception on the street has been harder to manage. For many small business owners, traders, and self-employed Nigerians, bank accounts are now seen not only as financial tools but also as potential exposure points to aggressive tax enforcement. In response, cash holding has become a form of self-protection.

This fear-driven behavior appears to be compounding long-standing mistrust rooted in past policy shocks, including sudden regulatory changes and enforcement actions. Instead of deepening financial inclusion, the tax law has coincided with a period in which people are actively distancing themselves from banks, preferring to transact and store value in cash.

The macroeconomic consequences are significant. When such a large share of money circulates outside banks, the effectiveness of monetary policy weakens. Interest rate adjustments, liquidity controls, and other tools largely operate through the banking system. Cash-dominant actors in the informal economy remain largely untouched by these signals, even as formal-sector borrowers face tighter conditions.

There are fiscal implications as well. A system where most transactions never touch bank accounts complicates tax administration and widens information gaps. Ironically, fears of enforcement may be driving behavior that makes revenue collection harder, not easier.

As 2026 begins, the message from the data is that Nigeria’s economy is still running heavily on cash, and policy actions meant to strengthen control and compliance may be reinforcing that reality. Until trust in institutions improves and enforcement is seen as predictable rather than punitive, physical cash is likely to remain the safest option for millions of Nigerians, far removed from the balance sheets where monetary policy is meant to bite.

Nigeria is operating far below its productive potential. If the country were anywhere near optimal efficiency, its GDP should be closer to $3 trillion, not the roughly $400 billion we see today. That gap tells a simple story: Nigeria requires at least a 7× economic expansion to approach equilibrium.

Yet, nearly 90% of existing companies are structurally incapable of delivering that kind of scalable growth even. Yes, even with effort and goodwill, many are anchored to outdated assumptions, weak foundations, and legacy business models that cannot be redesigned for exponential leverage.

Only new species of companies, built on fresh business models, enabled by smarter policies, and energized by modern technology, can unlock that growth. That reality explains why insurance penetration remains below 2%, why electricity companies deliver more darkness than light, why access to clean potable water is still elusive, and why we deploy nearly 65% of our workforce yet still struggle with hunger and low productivity. You can add many more items to that list.

It is tempting to blame customers, but history teaches us otherwise. Recall the 1990s, when new-generation banks emerged and convinced Nigerians, many for the first time, that banking services could be trusted and valuable. That same level of redesign is now required in insurance, power, water, education, healthcare, and beyond. The companies capable of driving those transformations are still too few.

I noted recently that South Africa runs a national budget about $100 billion larger than Nigeria’s, despite having less than 30% of Nigeria’s population. That is not magic; it is the outcome of productivity, structure, and effective enterprises. Their stock market is worth at least $1 trillion more than Nigeria’s. That is not luck; it is a translation of an economy from money to capital. Nigeria needs that to happen; move from money and capitalize the economy!

Get it: Money is a subset of capital, and nations which allow money to dominate their thinking inevitably underperform. In Nigeria, we are excessively focused on money. But until Nigerian policymakers reorient our priorities toward capital formation and evolution, our economic struggles will persist, because without capital, money only scales poverty!