Intel’s turnaround under CEO Lip-Bu Tan gains steam with another strong quarter
Shares of Intel moved higher after the chipmaker reported strong quarterly results and provided an upbeat third-quarter outlook. We expect more gains ahead under the guidance of CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Revenue in the second quarter increased 25% year over year to $16.1 billion, exceeding the LSEG-compiled consensus estimate of $14.42 billion. Non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) swung to a 42-cent profit from a 10-cent loss one year ago, beating the LSEG estimate of 21 cents. Intel was up roughly 4% in after-hours trading, bringing it to around $104 per share. It traded as high as about $113 in reaction to the results. INTC 1Y mountain Intel 1-year return Bottom line It’s hard not to be impressed by Lip-Bu Tan, who became CEO in March 2025 and has already changed the company’s culture while transforming it from a money loser to a profitable, growing operation. Along the way, Intel is regaining investor trust after years of disappointment. To be fair, part of that success is tied to the incredible demand for AI infrastructure. Customers can’t get enough of its x86 CPUs to run agentic AI tasks. The advanced packaging business has become strategically important in the AI era, connecting systems of multiple smaller chips so they act like a single chip. And the foundry business provides a strategic advantage, allowing Intel to produce its own AI CPUs without relying on industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). With these tailwinds at its back and under disciplined leadership, Intel exceeded its own revenue guidance by $1.8 billion, and more than doubled its own Non-GAAP EPS forecast, reporting $0.42 versus the company’s $0.20 outlook. One slight disappointment this evening was that the company did not announce any major customers for its foundry. Several big names, including Apple , have been rumored to be partnering with Intel, but no formal deals have been announced. We fully expect deals will be announced as Intel shows the strength of its manufacturing technology. Another thing to monitor is capital expenditures. Citing strong customer demand signals, Intel now expects capex to be more than $20 billion in 2026. That’s an increase of roughly $3 billion from prior expectations. And for 2027, the company expects capex to increase significantly as the company invests across its U.S. network. Capex has become a dirty word among tech investors because the more hyperscalers spend, the more their stocks fall due to uncertainty about the return on those investments. Building a fab can be very expensive, but these are wise investments because the demand is there and customers will want more of their chips made in the U.S. to reduce their geopolitical risk. Intel’s foundry is a logical winner for those who can’t get enough supply from Taiwan Semiconductor. Based on the strength in the quarter and positive outlook for the future, we reiterate our 1 rating and $140 price target. Why we own it Intel is benefiting from the AI boom in multiple ways: Its data center CPUs are in demand to support AI agent-driven tasks, while its foundry business allows the company to manufacture its own processors, along with chips designed by other companies. Competitors : Taiwan Semiconductor , AMD , Arm Holdings Most recent buy : July 13, 2026 Initiated : June 3, 2026 Commentary The client computing and physical AI group segment delivered strong results despite softening in the PC market. The company said its AI PC revenues improved 26% sequentially and edge deployments (computing close to where the data is created) now make up about 10% of segment revenue. Higher average selling prices helped boost sales, not just from sales to higher-end customers but also by passing on some of their cost inflation to the end customer. The company’s data center and AI segment was the standout performer, with revenue climbing $2.3 billion year over year and operating income surging $1.8 billion due to strong demand from hyperscalers and enterprise customers. With industry supply unable to keep up with demand in the agentic AI era, Intel has also been able to push through CPU price increases to boost profits. Also, as customers race to lock in supply and hedge against escalating prices, they are rushing to Intel to secure long-term supply agreements, similar to what we’ve heard from Micron and Sandisk . How big can the data center CPU market grow? Intel was hesitant to put numbers around the forecast of a $220 billion CPU market by 2030 that AMD gave on Thursday at its investor event. However, management pointed to the ratio of CPUs to GPUs in AI server racks. As we’ve explained several times, CPUs are better equipped at handling agentic tasks compared to GPUs. The rise of the agentic AI era has pushed the ratio of CPUs to GPUs from 1 to 8 during the early stages of the AI era to something more toward 1 to 4. Today, Intel believes the ratio is almost at parity (1 to 1), and they expect the ratio to skew even more toward CPUs in the future. Intel’s foundry business, which primarily makes Intel’s own chips, continued to show improvement. This unit used to be a mess, struggling to meet yields and reliability that customers needed. But it has found its stride under Tan’s operational and technological leadership. Revenue increased 31% year over year, while losses narrowed for the second straight quarter as improved yields and faster cycle times boosted supply above management’s internal target. Looking ahead, Intel’s most advanced manufacturing process, called 14A, is expected to enter risk production on internal products in the second half of 2027, and from there Tan will decide whether to enter high-volume production in 2028. Outlook Turning to guidance, Intel expects revenue in the range of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion. The $16.3 billion midpoint is a healthy forecast compared to the consensus estimate of $15.1 billion. Moving down the line, the company expects GAAP gross margins of 41.0% and Non-GAAP gross margins of 42.0%, representing an improvement of 2 percentage points from last year. Those are both stronger than the consensus Non-GAAP estimate of 40.5%. On the bottom line, Non-GAAP earnings per share were forecasted to be 38 cents, which is a big beat versus the consensus analyst estimate of 27 cents. Intel earned 23 cents in the third quarter of 2025. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long INTC. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. 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