Intel Xeon 6+ “Clearwater Forest” Enters Mass Production on 18A With 288 Darkmont E-Cores and 576 MB Cache

Intel says Clearwater Forest, its upcoming Xeon 6+ server CPU family, has entered full production on the 18A process.

The chips are expected to launch later this year and use Darkmont E-cores, scaling up to 288 cores and 576 MB of L3 cache.

Intel is positioning the platform for data center and edge AI workloads, with support already included in oneAPI 2026.0.

The news marks a major ramp for Intel’s 18A node, alongside comparisons to current Xeon platforms and future parts like Diamond Rapids.