I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Intel is losing the power it had as a general-purpose CPU maker. Now that technology and brains are improving, others ar

I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Intel is losing the power it had as a general-purpose CPU maker. Now that technology and brains are improving, others are figuring out more efficient ways of handling specific tasks that the x86/x64 CPU used to do in an efficient manner. And intel doesn't have these people. They don't want the embarrassment and are too entrenched in their own processes. The technology as of this year can compete or stomp intel into the ground. We can program ASICs to handle any task, just about as fast as it can handle the electron flow. The only real setback is the fact the instructions are not hard-coded in the actual physical logic. That's literally the only slow-down. Were it not for that translation layer right there, ASICs would come out on top, no problem. Specialization is the future. General purpose was good enough for 30 years, it's time to move on.