Shares of Intel (NASDAQ:INTC | INTC Price Prediction) are ripping higher in Friday premarket trading, last quoted near $83.50 after the chipmaker delivered a blowout Q1 2026 earnings report. That move pushes INTC stock above 100% year-to-date in 2026, a remarkable comeback for a name that spent years as the punching bag of the semiconductor sector.
The stock closed Thursday at $66.78, already up 81% year-to-date heading into the print. The roughly 25% premarket gap on Friday takes Intel shares to their highest level since the dot-com era, with Bloomberg labeling the move a “$240 billion rally.”
Over the last 12 months, Intel stock has soared 224%. That’s a stunning reversal for a company many investors had left for dead.
Blowout Earnings Fuel the Breakout
Intel’s fiscal Q1 2026 results, released after Thursday’s close, crushed Wall Street estimates. Revenue came in at $13.6 billion, up roughly 7% year over year, beating the $12.43 billion consensus. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.29 obliterated consensus estimates.
The real eye-opener was the Data Center and AI segment, which grew 22% year over year to $5.05 billion. Intel Foundry revenue climbed 16% to $5.42 billion, and non-GAAP gross margin expanded to 41%. Management guided Q2 revenue comfortably above the Street.
The Lip-Bu Tan Turnaround Hits Its Stride
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is celebrating his one-year anniversary at Intel with this report, and he’s framing the quarter as proof the turnaround is real. “This is a fundamentally different company today,” Tan said, emphasizing a return to Intel’s “paranoid” engineering-driven roots.
Tan’s plan has involved aggressive workforce discipline, new leadership hires (including Shawn Han, a veteran from Samsung Electronics, for foundry operations), and a sharper focus on manufacturing execution. Insiders are putting their money where their mouth is, too. Recent filings show 48 insider transactions with a net buying direction, including Intel CFO David Zinsner acquiring shares at $42.50 in late January.
CPUs Are Back: The Agentic AI Narrative
The core bull thesis driving Intel’s re-rating is the idea that CPUs are becoming critical again for AI orchestration, control plane, and data management tasks. Tan put it this way:
The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic. This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel’s CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings.
Strategic wins are stacking up, with Intel announcing a multiyear partnership with Alphabet‘s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google for custom ASIC IPU co-development, and Intel Xeon 6 was selected as the host CPU for NVIDIA‘s (NASDAQ:NVDA) DGX Rubin NVL8 systems. Intel also joined the Terafab project alongside SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), with government tailwinds from CHIPS Act support rounding out the picture.
The Bear Case Hasn’t Disappeared
Intel still reported a GAAP net loss of $3.73 billion, weighed down by a $4.07 billion restructuring charge tied to Mobileye goodwill impairment. Capex remains heavy at $4.96 billion for the quarter, and free cash flow was deeply negative.
The analyst consensus is also cautious. The current consensus INTC stock price target sits at $55.33, well below Thursday’s close, with 9 Buy, 33 Hold, and 6 Sell ratings. That’s a reminder to check out our recent coverage of semiconductor stocks to watch before chasing the move.
What to Watch Next
Investors will want to see whether Friday’s gains hold into the close, and whether the Intel 18A node ramps on schedule with paying foundry customers attached. Gross margin trajectory toward the guided 39% for Q2 could be the next proof point.
The setup is encouraging, but Intel’s valuation now prices in meaningful execution. A cautious approach, with modest position sizing, makes sense for investors who missed the initial run. The next catalyst for INTC stock could come from foundry customer announcements tied to Panther Lake and Rubin-era deployments, and those headlines may shape the next leg of the story.
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