Intel just posted one of its strongest quarters in years, and Wall Street took notice.
The chipmaker reported Q1 2026 EPS of $0.29, blowing past the analyst consensus of $0.01. Revenue hit $13.58 billion, topping expectations of $12.32 billion by more than a billion dollars. The stock surged on the news, touching a 52-week high of $87.10.
For a company that spent much of the past few years playing catch-up, it’s a welcome change of pace.
The standout was Intel’s data center division. Revenue from that segment rose 22% year-over-year to over $5 billion. That growth is being driven by something that wasn’t part of the AI conversation just a year ago — demand for CPUs.
GPUs have dominated the AI hardware story. But as companies build out agentic AI systems, CPUs are stepping back into the spotlight.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan explained it plainly on the earnings call: “The CPU now serves as the orchestration layer and critical control plane for the entire AI stack.”
Agentic AI — systems that autonomously retrieve data, make decisions, and complete multi-step tasks — relies heavily on CPU-based orchestration. While GPUs handle raw inference workloads, CPUs manage the coordination between tasks and agents.
The GPU-to-CPU ratio for these workloads has already shifted from 8-to-1 down to 4-to-1. Tan believes that ratio could move toward parity over time, which would represent a major increase in CPU demand.
Intel is well positioned here. The company designs and manufactures its own CPUs, and even produces the silicon wafers used to make them. That end-to-end control is a real advantage.
Intel also recently bought out the remaining 49% stake in its Fab 34 facility in Ireland that it didn’t already own, funded through a multi-tranche bond sale. The move strengthens its manufacturing footprint and was seen as a positive signal on balance sheet confidence.
The earnings beat triggered a wave of price target upgrades. KeyCorp moved its target from $70 to $110 with an “overweight” rating. Morgan Stanley raised its target from $56 to $73, keeping an “equal weight” rating. DA Davidson lifted its target from $45 to $77 with a “neutral” rating.
Northland Securities bumped its FY2026 EPS forecast to $0.58 and FY2027 to $0.74, maintaining an “Outperform” rating with a $92 price target.
Not everyone is convinced the run has more legs. Rosenblatt Securities kept a “sell” rating, raising its target from $30 to $50. Barclays also flagged caution, suggesting the rally may be getting stretched. The stock’s consensus rating remains “Hold” with an average target of $72.98.
Of 40 analysts covering INTC, 11 rate it a Buy, 25 a Hold, and 4 a Sell.
On the institutional side, Van ECK Associates holds over 55 million Intel shares valued at roughly $1.86 billion. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group holds over 11.6 million shares.
Intel set Q2 2026 EPS guidance at $0.20, and the full-year analyst consensus sits at $0.17 EPS.
The stock opened at $84.52 on Wednesday, with a market cap of approximately $422 billion.
The post Intel (INTC) Stock Soars After CEO Says CPUs Are Now the Backbone of AI appeared first on CoinCentral.
