New Delhi, May 9 -- It has been a sad few years for the venerable central processing unit. The one-time standard-bearer of the computing revolution has been pushed aside in recent years with the rise of generative artificial intelligence powered by graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are used for a lot more than graphics these days.

But now attention is swinging back to the main brain of data-center computing, the CPU. With one big change: Unlike in the past, Intel will have to share the spotlight, and may not even be the primary winner.

In the past two weeks, three server CPU companies-Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and Arm Holdings-reported their earnings, and each gave commentary indicating that the market will be larger in a f...