Intel data center weakness likely to continue into 2023, J.P. Morgan says
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Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is slated to report fourth-quarter results on Thursday after the close of trading and investment firm J.P. Morgan believes the company's weak position in the data center is likely to persist for some time.
Analyst Harlan Sur noted that overall demand for the data center should continue to grow this year, but the second-half of the year is likely to be stronger than the first, due in part to a bifurcation between high-performance compute and networking and general purpose compute and storage and memory.
"...[L]ook for companies levered to data center trends to outperform across high performance compute and networking (Nvidia) (NVDA), Marvell (MRVL) and Broadcom (AVGO) while general purpose compute and storage/memory likely to see [first-half] weakness Intel (INTC), AMD (AMD) Micron (MU) and Western Digital (WDC)," Sur wrote in a note to clients. 
Sur added that cloud data center spending remained solid in 202, up an estimated 32% year-over-year, but growth is expected to slow down considerably to just 7% year-over-year in 2023.
A consensus of analysts expect Intel (INTC) to earn 20 cents per share on $14.5B in revenue.
Intel's (INTC) continued troubles in the PC space are well-known by now, but Sur said that the Pat Gelsinger-led company has continued to make progress on excess inventories and hopes to have it under control soon. 
"For Intel, the team expects inventories to normalize between [third-quarter] and [fourth-quarter] as OEMs have taken the right actions to balance inventory with demand," Sur added.
Additional attention will be on the company's recently launched Sapphire Rapids CPU server upgrade, however, Sur noted.
Lastly, investors will want to hear any updates on how Intel (INTC) has fared obtaining one-year exemptions on export regulations to China given that it has facilities in the world's most populous country. 
Earlier this month, Intel's (INTC) Gelsinger said that it was still in talks with Italy to build a fab in the country but was talking to other European countries as well.