Royal Core's successor, Cobra Core, is already in the pipeline and it will be these microarchitectures will power Intel's next-generation processors.

Intel engineer Antony Jose Emmatty's LinkedIn profile: Intel has been working on Royal Core and Cobra Core since 2023. The project aims to "create and execute a new architecture for Intel x86 processors with more power efficiency and high performance compared to the other competitors in the market."

Lion Cove is the P-core inside Intel's Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake) and Core Ultra 200 (Arrow Lake) processors. Intel claims the new microarchitecture promises double-digit IPC improvements over the previous Raptor Cove that powers 13th and 14th Generation Core processors.  Royal Core is the successor to Raptor Cove.

According to the Intel employee's project description, Royal Core will simultaneously focus on achieving high performance and efficiency. Chipzilla seems to want to develop a competitive microarchitecture to compete with Arm-based rivals, such as Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus or Apple's M-series silicon.

It seems likely that Royal Core will debut with Nova Lake. However, Nova Lake for mobile and desktops won't be in the shops until 2026 to 2027.

Moving from Royal Core to Cobra Core won't be quick either, as Intel wants to release upgraded variants of Royal Core.

Cobra Core will eventually replace Royal Core. There's no estimated timetable, but we suspect Cobra Core will arrive no earlier than 2027.