Intel (INTC) stock gains after positive first-quarter earnings report
Intel shares are trading up 8.4% at $91.67 on 29 April 2026, continuing a positive trajectory initiated by its first-quarter earnings report. The United States chipmaker's stock has risen from its previous close of $84.52, extending gains seen earlier in the week.
The current move follows Intel's Q1 earnings beat on 23 April 2026, where the company exceeded its revenue guidance of $13.6 billion, marking a 7% year-on-year increase. Gross margin reached 39.4%, primarily fuelled by surging AI-driven demand for its Xeon server CPUs. CEO Lip-Bu Tan noted during the earnings call that CPU demand continues to outpace supply.
This latest advance builds on the significant momentum established after the earnings release, which saw the stock climb 23.6% on 24 April. Bank of America subsequently raised its price target, acknowledging Intel's 123% year-to-date surge as of 24 April, a performance that has outpaced the S&P 500. The company's strategic initiatives, including repurchasing Apollo's stake in Fab 34 Ireland, joining Elon Musk’s Terafab AI project, and a multiyear Google AI/cloud partnership, have also contributed to investor optimism.
Continued AI Tailwinds
Intel's performance since its earnings announcement has underscored the market's focus on AI-driven growth. The company's stock had previously risen 3.0% on 27 April, following the initial post-earnings rally, before a slight dip of 0.6% on 28 April. Today's rise indicates a renewed positive sentiment, with investors reacting to the sustained demand for its server CPUs. The company's Q1 results had previously been described as smashing Wall Street's expectations.
When supply can't keep pace with demand, chipmakers win
Intel manufactures and sells computer processors, primarily server CPUs that power data centres and AI infrastructure. Their customers are cloud providers, enterprises, and systems integrators who buy these chips in volume. The company makes money on the margin between what it costs to design and fabricate silicon and what customers pay for it.
The mechanic driving today's move is straightforward: Intel's Q1 results revealed that demand for its server CPUs now exceeds what the company can supply. During the earnings call on 23 April, CEO Lip-Bu Tan explicitly stated that CPU demand continues to outpace supply. This is the inverse of the usual chipmaker problem. Rather than worrying about whether customers want their products, Intel is constrained by its own manufacturing capacity. When demand exceeds supply in a market where customers have few alternatives, pricing power shifts to the seller. Intel's gross margin hit 39.4% in Q1, driven by this AI-led surge, and the company beat its revenue guidance of 13.6 billion dollars. Strategic partnerships with Google and involvement in Elon Musk's Terafab project, whilst notable, are secondary to this fundamental supply shortage.
Intel is trading up 8.4% at $91.67, a jump of $7.15 from its previous close of $84.52. The market is pricing in the reality that constrained supply allows the company to sell existing inventory at higher margins without needing to discount.
Think of it as a restaurant that can only seat 100 diners but has 150 people wanting tables every night. The owner doesn't need to run promotions or cut prices. They can raise them. Every seat fills at a premium, and profit per customer climbs. Intel's fabs are the dining room; AI demand is the queue outside the door.
Intel
Intel Corporation engages in the design, manufacture, and sale of computer products and technologies worldwide. The company operates through CCG, DCG, IOTG, Mobileye, NSG, PSG, and All Other segments. It offers platform products, such as central processing units and chipsets, and system-on-chip and multichip packages; and non-platform or adjacent products, including accelerators, boards and systems, connectivity products, graphics, and memory and storage products. The company also provides high-performance compute solutions for targeted verticals and embedded applications for retail, industrial, and healthcare markets; and solutions for assisted and autonomous driving comprising compute platforms, computer vision and machine learning-based sensing, mapping and localization, driving policy, and active sensors. In addition, it offers workload-optimized platforms and related products for cloud service providers, enterprise and government, and communications service providers. The company serves original equipment manufacturers, original design manufacturers, and cloud service providers. Intel Corporation has a strategic partnership with MILA to develop and apply advances in artificial intelligence methods for enhancing the search in the space of drugs. The company was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.