The rumor is that Intel might not offer 18a to external customers rather than getting rid of 18a itself. A lot of this seems to be due to their design libraries still being quite proprietary and not much to do with the viability of the process itself.

It's not about how soon 14a and 10a come out, but rather about how good they are when they arrive. 14a will be competing against TSMC A16 in late 2026 and 10a will be competing with TSMC A14 in late 2027. The measure of Intel's success will be whether they are gaining or losing vs TSMC.

On the customer front, I think customers are probably necessary to offset the ever-increasing R&D costs and an extra year or two to work on making their libraries more standardized may be best for everyone.