An Intel Xeon 6+ information heart CPU wafer on show at Intel Technology Tour in September 2025. Intel Xeon 6+ is anticipated to launch within the first half of 2026.
Courtesy: Intel
Intel reported first-quarter earnings Thursday that blew previous Wall Street’s expectations, because the struggling chipmaker reveals indicators of a revival.
Shares of the U.S. chipmaker jumped 15% in after-hours buying and selling.
Here’s how the corporate did, in contrast with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 29 cents adjusted vs. 1 cent anticipated
- Revenue: $13.58 billion vs. $12.42 billion anticipated
Intel has been a Wall Street darling of late, with its top off greater than 80% this yr as of Thursday’s shut, after hovering 84% in 2025. The chipmaker has been championed by the Trump administration, which turned the U.S. authorities into the most important shareholder final yr as a part of an effort to carry chip manufacturing stateside. Nvidia and SoftBank additionally invested billions in Intel.
But the enterprise, which fell method behind rivals Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices through the early phases of the factitious intelligence growth, hasn’t been seeing a lot momentum.
That may lastly be altering. Revenue elevated 7.2% from $12.67 billion a yr earlier. That follows year-over-year income declines in 5 of the previous seven quarter.
Intel mentioned it expects second-quarter income between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of 20 cents. That’s nicely above analyst expectations for income of $13.07 billion and EPS of 9 cents.
Intel noticed the strongest progress in its information heart enterprise, the place it is beginning to get traction in AI because of surging demand for central processing models (CPUs). Revenue in that division climbed 22% to $5.1 billion.
The once-sleepy CPU market has taken off as agentic workloads shift compute wants past Nvidia’s graphics processing models (GPUs) which have dominated AI to this point. That rising CPU demand underpinned Intel’s current $14 billion buy of a 49% stake in its Ireland chip fab that it had beforehand bought to Apollo Global Management.
Intel continues to be shedding cash. The firm mentioned its web loss widened to $4.28 billion, or 73 cents per share, from $887 million, or 19 cents a share a yr earlier.
Intel has an uncommon technique in the case of chips. As an built-in gadget producer, Intel makes its personal merchandise whereas additionally manufacturing the silicon that powers them. Most chipmakers outsource the complicated and dear manufacturing course of to large chip fabrication crops run by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Foundry income at Intel rose 16% from a yr go to $5.4 billion, although a lot of its foundry enterprise consists of constructing its personal chips.
Intel’s newest PC and information heart processors are made on 18A course of node at an enormous new fab in Arizona. For now, Intel stays the one main buyer of its 18A chip fabs, regardless of it being technologically just like TSMC’s 2-nanometer node.
The problem will probably be convincing longtime TSMC prospects to make the leap.
Intel is recovering from years of delays on earlier nodes, and a few 18A wafers have had defects, making for a decrease variety of usable chips per wafer, sometimes known as yield.
—CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos contributed to this report.
WATCH: Nvidia snaps up capacity for a key part of AI chipmaking
