TLDR
- Intel stock closed up ~24% Friday after beating Q1 earnings estimates on both revenue and EPS
- Q1 adjusted EPS came in at $0.29 vs. the $0.01 Wall Street expected; revenue hit $13.6B vs. $12.36B expected
- Data Center and AI revenue reached $5.1B, topping the $4.41B estimate
- Q2 revenue guidance of $13.8B–$14.8B came in well above the $13.03B consensus
- Citigroup upgraded Intel to Strong-Buy; multiple firms raised price targets following the report
Intel had a quarter Wall Street wasn’t expecting. The chipmaker posted adjusted EPS of $0.29 against a consensus estimate of just $0.01 — a beat of $0.28 per share. Revenue came in at $13.6 billion, topping the $12.36 billion forecast by a wide margin.
It’s the sixth consecutive quarter Intel has come in above its own revenue expectations, which CEO Lip-Bu Tan called the result of a “deliberate reset” in how the company operates.
The stock closed at $82.54 on Friday, up 23.6% on the day. That puts it near its 52-week high of $85.22, a long way from its 52-week low of $18.97.
Intel’s Data Center and AI segment was the standout. It brought in $5.1 billion in revenue, well above the $4.41 billion analysts had penciled in. Management described CPU demand for AI workloads as “unprecedented.”
AI Agents Driving CPU Demand
The argument Intel is making is straightforward. While GPUs handle the heavy lifting for training and running AI models, the tasks that AI agents actually perform — browsing the web, pulling data from files, running workflows — rely on CPUs. That’s Intel’s turf.
“The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user,” Tan said, “moving from foundational models to inference to agentic.”
Client Computing, which covers PC chips, also beat. Revenue hit $7.7 billion against a $7.1 billion estimate — even as the global PC market is expected to contract 11.3% in 2026, according to IDC.
Q2 guidance came in between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion. The Street had been at $13.03 billion. Intel also set Q2 EPS guidance at $0.20, above the current full-year analyst estimate of $0.08.
New Deals Add to the Story
Intel landed several high-profile deals in Q1. It will work with Elon Musk on the planned Terafab facility, producing chips for SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla. Tesla’s decision to use Intel’s 14A process is seen as a meaningful endorsement of its foundry business.
The company also announced a multiyear arrangement with Google, with Xeon CPUs set to power AI and inference workloads on Google Cloud.
In a separate move, Intel said it will repurchase a 49% stake in a fabrication facility it sold to Apollo in 2024 for $11.2 billion — buying it back for $14.2 billion.
On the analyst front, Citigroup upgraded Intel from Hold to Strong-Buy following the report. Royal Bank of Canada raised its price target from $48 to $80. BNP Paribas moved from Underperform to Buy. The consensus rating remains a Hold, with an average target of $72.12 — now below where the stock is trading.
Large institutional investors had already been building positions. Norges Bank added a new stake worth roughly $2.2 billion in Q4. Vanguard raised its holding by 3.5%. In total, institutional investors own about 64.5% of the stock.
Despite the supply crunch in its Data Center segment — demand is still outpacing what Intel can ship — the company said it will continue ramping supply each quarter.
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