SANTA CLARA, California, April 29, 2026, 11:05 PDT
Intel Company inventory surged roughly 10% late Wednesday morning, notching a brand new excessive after experiences surfaced that Alphabet’s Google is contemplating Intel’s cutting-edge chip-packaging tech for an upcoming AI processor. Shares final traded at $93.23, with an intraday peak of $94.03, based on market knowledge.
Why does this stick? Intel’s foundry push—the capital drain of Lip-Bu Tan’s turnaround—nonetheless has loads to show. A packaging contract tied to Google, if it lands, would give Intel some wanted ammo towards skeptics questioning whether or not it could really rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on superior AI chip work.
In response to TrendForce, which referenced reporting from Taiwan’s Business Instances, Google’s TPU v8e is likely to be constructed with Intel’s EMIB tech. EMIB—Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge—connects a number of chiplets right into a single bundle. Google’s TPUs, or tensor processing models, energy its machine-learning programs.
Simply days after Intel’s first-quarter numbers—$13.6 billion in income, a 7% year-on-year soar—one other report surfaced. For the second quarter, Intel is guiding income between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion. Non-GAAP earnings landed at 29 cents a share, a marked enchancment from the identical interval final yr.
Intel is seeing demand decide up because the AI market shifts from coaching to inference—the purpose when AI fashions begin dealing with precise person questions and duties. “The following wave of AI” brings intelligence nearer to finish customers, Tan mentioned final week. That shift is boosting urge for food for Intel’s CPUs and packaging merchandise. Intel Corporation
“Unprecedented demand for silicon,” CFO David Zinsner mentioned. Nonetheless, Reuters famous that a few of Intel’s first-quarter increase got here from shifting chips it had stored on ice. Zinsner wasn’t sure that tailwind would present up once more in Q2, he informed analysts. Reuters
Intel and Google weren’t strangers. Again on April 9, they rolled out a multiyear deal—tying up Xeon processors with customized infrastructure processing models, or IPUs, designed to shift networking, storage, and safety work away from fundamental CPUs. “Intel’s Xeon roadmap offers us confidence,” mentioned Google’s Amin Vahdat within the announcement. Intel Corporation
Competitors right here is concentrated however vital. Nvidia holds its lead in AI coaching, because of its graphics processors. Superior Micro Gadgets has been turning up the stress in server CPUs and AI accelerators. Intel, for its half, is making the case that AI setups require a extra balanced infrastructure—it’s not all about GPUs.
That is what places the foundry situation entrance and middle. Intel’s Merchandise division hauled in $12.8 billion in first-quarter gross sales. The Foundry phase introduced in $5.4 billion—however the bulk of that also comes from inner demand, not third-party shoppers.
Bob O’Donnell, who heads TECHnalysis Analysis, informed Reuters that if the foundry enterprise begins pulling actual weight by 2027, that might sign Intel’s “turnaround is full.” That situation, not simply one other stretch of sturdy server-chip gross sales, is what traders are betting on now. Reuters
However right here’s the rub: these Google EMIB experiences aren’t backed by a confirmed order from the corporate, and Intel’s foundry ambitions nonetheless include a hefty price ticket. For the primary quarter, Intel logged a GAAP web lack of $3.7 billion, weighed down by over $4 billion in restructuring and associated prices.
Michael Schulman, companion at Cerity Companions, described the long-term image to Reuters as a “high-stakes gamble” on Intel’s probabilities of establishing itself as a professional foundry rival by 2030. That danger remains to be hanging round. With Wednesday’s rally, the value of seeing the following milestone simply moved larger. Reuters