Intel has discontinued its controversial pay-to-unlock hardware feature model, according to multiple reports. The company's Software Defined Silicon initiative, branded as Intel On Demand, allowed customers to activate disabled processor features through additional payments.
The GitHub repository containing software components for Intel On Demand was archived in November 2025, signaling the end of active development. Intel has also removed most On Demand documentation from its website, leaving only old PDF files accessible through the site.
Intel first introduced Software Defined Silicon in 2021 for its 4th Generation Xeon processors. The system shipped specific Xeon models with integrated accelerator functions disabled unless customers paid to activate them.
Features included Intel SGX secure enclave support, QuickAssist compression and crypto accelerators, DLB hardware load balancing, Data Streaming Accelerator memory bandwidth boost, In-Memory Analytics Accelerator, and VROC NVMe RAID functionality.
Customers could choose between permanent feature enablement through a one-time payment or a usage-based license model. Intel argued this approach allowed businesses to transfer costs from capital expenditures to operational expenditures.
The latest Xeon 6 and 600-series processors do not include Intel On Demand support. Granite Rapids processors, Intel's current generation server chips, also lack the feature. This confirms the program's discontinuation across new product lines.
Intel's move comes as the company focuses on other priorities under CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Since taking the role nearly a year ago, Tan has cut operational costs and streamlined what he called a "bloated" organizational structure.
The company has also seen strong demand for traditional CPUs, with server processor demand reportedly skyrocketing due to AI moving from model-training to agentic inference phases.
Intel stock gained 84% in 2025 and added another 26% in January 2026 after the company unveiled its first 18A chip, Panther Lake. Average prices for Intel server processors in China have increased by more than 10% due to supply constraints, according to Reuters.
The pay-to-unlock model faced widespread criticism from the tech community since its introduction. Similar attempts date back to 2010 with the Pentium G6950 and Intel Upgrade Service.
Industry observers note that customers consistently reject paying extra to use features of products they already purchased.
With the GitHub project archived in November 2025 and web pages removed, Intel has abandoned Software Defined Silicon, confirming the initiative will not be part of Intel's next-generation Xeon platforms.
