Intel’s stock soars 15% as results top estimates, with chipmaker showing signs of growth

Shares of the U.S. chipmaker jumped 15% in after-hours trading.

Here’s how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: 29 cents adjusted vs. 1 cent expected
• Revenue: $13.58 billion vs. $12.42 billion expected

Intel has been a Wall Street darling of late, with its stock up more than 80% this year as of Thursday’s close, after soaring 84% in 2025. The chipmaker has been championed by the Trump administration, which turned the U.S. government into the largest shareholder last year as part of an effort to bring chip manufacturing stateside. Nvidia and SoftBank also invested billions in Intel.

But the business, which fell way behind rivals Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices during the early stages of the artificial intelligence boom, hasn’t been seeing much momentum.

That could finally be changing. Revenue increased 7.2% from $12.67 billion a year earlier. That follows year-over-year revenue declines in five of the past seven quarter.

Intel said it expects second-quarter revenue between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of 20 cents. That’s well above analyst expectations for revenue of $13.07 billion and EPS of 9 cents.

Intel saw the strongest growth in its data center business, where it’s starting to get traction in AI thanks to surging demand for central processing units (CPUs). Revenue in that division climbed 22% to $5.1 billion.

The once-sleepy CPU market has taken off as agentic workloads shift compute needs beyond Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) that have ruled AI thus far. That growing CPU demand underpinned Intel’s recent $14 billion purchase of a 49% stake in its Ireland chip fab that it had previously sold to Apollo Global Management.

—CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos contributed to this report.

WATCH: Nvidia snaps up capacity for a key part of AI chipmaking