Intel shares have soared nearly 500% over the past year, pushing the intc stock price to a fresh 52-week high near $130 after the company’s first-quarter results in late April and reports earlier this month of a preliminary chip-manufacturing agreement with Apple. The move has turned a once-stagnant name into one of the market’s sharpest rallies.
The latest earnings were strong enough to justify some of that run. Intel’s first-quarter 2026 revenue rose 7% from a year earlier to $13.6 billion, beating the midpoint of management’s guidance by more than $1 billion, while non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.29 against a forecast for breakeven. The company has now exceeded its own outlook for six straight quarters, and adjusted gross margin widened to 41% from 39.2% a year ago.
The biggest sign that investors are buying the turnaround story came from Intel’s data center and AI business. Revenue in that segment climbed 22% year over year to $5.1 billion, a faster pace than the 9% growth it posted in the fourth quarter of 2025. Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner pointed to “the growing and essential role of the CPU in the AI era and unprecedented demand for silicon,” a line that captured why the stock has kept climbing even as the company’s broader business still looks uneven.
That is where the tension sits. Intel’s rally has been powered partly by AI enthusiasm, but the company is still a long way from matching the economics of the industry leader it is being compared with. Nvidia’s most recent quarter brought revenue of $68.1 billion, up 73% from a year earlier, with data center revenue of $62.3 billion and gross margin of 75%. Nvidia’s data center sales were nearly five times Intel’s total quarterly revenue, and its fiscal 2026 revenue grew 65% to $215.9 billion. Intel’s full-year 2025 revenue was about $52.9 billion and was essentially flat from the year before.
Intel’s turnaround also has outside support. Nvidia agreed last year to invest $5 billion in Intel and to use it for custom data center CPUs, and Intel later joined Elon Musk’s Terafab project as a strategic partner alongside SpaceX, xAI and Tesla. The U.S. government also holds roughly a 10% stake in Intel, underscoring how much is riding on the company’s recovery.
Even with the stock near record territory, the business is still carrying a heavy burden. Intel’s foundry segment posted a $2.4 billion operating loss in the first quarter, a reminder that the rally is running ahead of the part of the company that investors most want to see fixed. The answer to whether the intc stock price can hold these levels is already clearer than it was a few weeks ago: the market believes Intel is proving itself, but it is still waiting for the foundry to do the same.
