Intel folds its mini-PC series

NUC 11 Enthusiast, a gaming mini-PC. © Intel.

Since 2012, Intel has been designing and selling its own mini-PC house brand under the name NUC (Next Unit of Computing). However, The Verge reports that according to Intel spokesperson Mark Walton, the company has moved to axe this series of products. Walton says that Intel has “decided to stop direct investment in the Next Unit of Computing Business and pivot its strategy to enable ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and growth.” Reading between the lines, Intel could still choose to collaborate with partners to produce NUCs or similar products. Furthermore, Intel promises to continue supporting NUC products currently in use.

The first NUC, sold in 2012 for 399 USD, looked like a Mac Mini and was equipped with an Intel Core i3 processor. Over the years, Intel produced more robust models, some of which were geared to gaming. NUCs were meant to emulate the speed, size and low energy use of an Ultrabook but for office computing, replacing big and ugly desktops with something much sleeker. One is tempted to draw a direct link between Intel’s decision to discontinue and its recent financial woes, with the company going through some challenging times after the pandemic-induced PC boom came to an abrupt halt. It also announced in April that it would divest its prebuilt server business.

⇨ Ars Technica, Andrew Cunningham, “No more NUC: Intel’s weirdly named mini PCs seem to be going away.”

2023-07-11