On March 25, 2026, we sent thousands of investors an email titled “Is Intel The Must-Own Stock for 2026?”
The argument was simple: agentic AI was about to shift the bottleneck from GPUs to CPUs, CPU lead times had stretched from 1-2 weeks to 6 months, and Intel and AMD were raising prices into that demand.
If you acted on it, congratulations.
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC | INTC Price Prediction) closed at $47.18 on March 25 and closed yesterday at $66.78. That is a verified ~42% move in one month, and after last night’s Q1, the stock is trading up another 25%. As of right now, that’s a 78% gain by simply acting on an email.
Why the Thesis Worked
Back to Intel, the Q1 2026 report is the cleanest validation of the CPU-bottleneck thesis we’ve seen. Non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.29 versus a $0.0127 consensus, a 2,183% beat. Revenue hit $13.58 billion, beating by ~9% and growing 7.2% YoY. It was the sixth consecutive quarter of revenue above expectations.
The segment mix told the story. Data Center and AI grew 22% YoY to $5.05 billion. Intel Foundry grew 16% to $5.42 billion. Non-GAAP gross margin expanded to 41.0% from 39.2%. That is operating leverage showing up in the math.
Here is CEO Lip-Bu Tan on the earnings call:
“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.”
Lip-Bu Tan, Intel Q1 2026 release
The Flywheel Is Spinning
Three proof points landed in the quarter: a multi-year partnership with Google including co-developed custom ASIC IPUs; Intel Xeon 6 selected as host CPU for NVIDIA’s DGX Rubin NVL8; and Intel joining the Terafab project alongside SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla. Hyperscalers do not sign multi-year deals with vendors they think are dying.
The One Ugly Number
GAAP net loss was $3.73 billion, driven by a $4.07 billion restructuring charge largely tied to a Mobileye goodwill impairment. It’s non-cash accounting tied to a prior acquisition, with the operating business intact. The non-GAAP line is the operating signal.
Why the Run Can Continue
Q2 guidance: revenue of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion, non-GAAP EPS of $0.20, gross margin around 39.0%. CFO David Zinsner said last quarter that demand is outpacing supply and expects that to persist into 2026.
The lesson: agentic AI workloads consume roughly 4x as many CPU cores as traditional AI tasks. The bottleneck everyone is hunting for has a name, and Intel and AMD sit on top of it. If you believe agentic AI is early, the CPU chapter is still being written. If you think the trade is done, the analyst consensus target of $55.33 gives you the bear case. Either way, the March 25 call paid off.
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