Overview
- Intel, which reported first-quarter revenue of about $13.6 billion and adjusted earnings of $0.29 on Thursday, guided second-quarter sales to $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion and projected stronger profitability than analysts expected.
- Executives said demand is jumping for CPUs that run inference and agentic AI tasks, with CPUs handling control and reasoning work that GPUs are not designed to do at scale.
- Following Friday’s stock surge to all-time highs, gains spread across chip makers as AMD and Arm jumped and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index set fresh records.
- Intel highlighted new traction with Tesla selecting its next‑gen 14A process for Elon Musk’s Terafab chip project and an expanded AI infrastructure partnership with Google.
- Analysts raised price targets and upgrades followed from firms like Citi and Evercore, yet the foundry unit remains loss‑making and still faces yield and capacity risks that Bank of America and others say could limit the rally.