They aren't the new IBM/Oracle yet, but they need a bet that doesn't depend on their manufacturing capabilities.
And my understanding is that AMD is currently much better when you have a low power budget: https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph17641/130507.png https://www.anandtech.com/show/17641/lighter-touch-cpu-power... (I know those are the desktop versions and that's all AMD has, but by the time you're looking at cooling 50-150 watts the socket isn't very important.) (Also Intel claims their lowest-wattage 8+16 core, by a huge margin, is a desktop model.)
That is what mainstream / Apple centric media wants to tell / sell that story.
The only refresh I heard of is the Raptor Lake CPU refresh which will be Intel’s 14th gen CPUs - which might enable some features like the Digital Linear Voltage Regulator (DLVR) that were disabled due to bugs in the 13th gen CPUs; DLVR could potentially significantly reduce power draw.