The company is due to release a low-power server chip in the second half of the year code-named Centerton, and will follow that up next year with a part dubbed Avoton.

"We have what is required by customers -- low powered CPUs, support for key server features, and software compatibility to allow use of current workloads and not force any migration," Intel spokesman Radek Walczyk said via email.

That still doesn't give it an equivalent to AMD's Freedom Fabric, however.

"Think of the chip as half the battle," said Moorhead, the industry analyst. "The part of the battle [Intel] hasn't discussed yet is the fabric that makes hundreds or thousands of these parts talk to each other. That's the magic that guys like Calxeda and AMD are bringing to the table."